Lizzy at Liberty

fail…

Something that I have been failing at doing this semester is to work on writing my personal blog! I can’t even begin to tell you all how busy I have been and how much I wish I could have written more this semester. I have been juggling more that I ever have in my life and that has been tough but a good challenge. One reason I haven’t been doing much with my personal blog is because my blog for Liberty pretty much covers everything I do. I will say though that I have definitely missed not being able to share “what really goes on in my life.” Right now i’m not fall break and for the first time this weekend, i’m turning off the tv and i’m doing some deep reflecting in silence with some “homemade” apple cider, basically apple juice with cinnamon and all spice heated up in the microwave (lame but tastes awesome). Honestly I don’t even know where to begin so i’m just going to start at the beginning of the semester…

When I first got to Liberty, I knew things were going to be hectic but they were a lot different than I had imagined them. One reason that I have been so busy is that I have been gone a lot on the weekends or there has been a huge event planned on the weekends I was at Liberty. The first week back at school was so crazy because not only did we have the leadership conference but I was also trying to get unpacked, get to know all new people on our leadership team, meet the freshman and help them move in and also be social with all of my friends from last year! And then on the weekend I went to see Hillsong United in greensboro and believe it or not caught up on sleep the night after the concert! 

Let me give you a little glimpe of what my days look like: M/W/F convo at 10:00, work from 12-3 class from 4-5:20  and then dinner and possibly some sort of activity to be able to write about oh and campus church on wednesdays. Then T/R class from 9:15-10:30 then lunch and then classes from 12:25-3:15 then usually a little break and try to get a nap in and then homework and studying. Theres a lot of other random things in the week that i do such as leader prayer groups and resident hall leadership meeting. and then prayer groups on tuesdays and prayer leader class on wednesday mornings. 

So I guess the reason I wanted to tell you all my schedule (other than the fact that now you can stalk me :S) is that you realize how busy I am. However this is all “self inflicted” busyness. I love my classes, I love my job and I LOVE being a prayer leader. I just wish all three didn’t require so much time individually. 

The best thing from this semester has been my roommates Drew and Lauren. At the beginning of the year we nick named ourselves the skyscrapers because all of us are so tall and we joke that when we’re apart we’re just tall buildings hahaha Whenever people ask about my roommates I just tell them I can’t explain in words how great they are. These girls have now seen me at my worst and they still love and care for me for some reason. They have both grown so much since we got to school and I seriously don’t know how I have existed without them!!! 

Other things that I have done is go to the NC State Liberty game down in Raleigh which was one of the funnest things i’ve done in a while! I loved having my first tailgating experience on a Secular campus even though most people looked like idiots, dressed inappropriately and acted crazy, I got the real feel for college without having to go to one of those schools and buy into all the stuff they do for “FUN” 

Now comes something that I am probably not going to be able to write about well yet and i’m really sorry if a lot of it doesn’t make sense. Since this semester has been one of the busiest of my life and therefore I know I have neglected my relationship with Christ. At night I would be so tired that I wouldn’t even pick up my Bible and then in the morning I would spend way too much time getting ready and never opening the word of God. I would make excuses that I was getting fed enough in church, bible classes and LPG’s but the truth is I was really neglecting a relationship that should be most cherished…

So when I got the news on September 16th that my grandfather had a stroke and was in bad shape I really couldn’t turn to the Lord because there was a wall up … A wall that I had put there myself and was too Lazy to break down because I cared more about sleep, work, classes and go figure- ministry. I was coming to this person for comfort in an emotional time only to realize that I had ignored him, he had been put on the back burner. So how could I expect my Jesus to minister to me in this time of need when I had been ignoring him while everything was going just great. Despite my desperate cries for him to to heal my grandpa, to not make my family go through this again in one year…He chose to take my Grandpa home with him on September 26th. Not only was I furious that he would take away from us, I was mad that he had to go the way he did. I was mad that my mom and her brother had to loose another parent and I had to loose another grandparent. One who had just told me a few months before that he wasn’t going anywhere and he was going to be there to see me get married and hopefully have kids..

Fortunately I got to see him before he passed away but he wasn’t the Papa I knew my whole life. The man who was up at 6:00 a.m doing yard work and making sure everything was ready for the day. The man who invented things like the Karstedt Catalyst in a science lab when he was younger.. He was an old man in a hospital bed, not able to formulate a sentence. I know however that he could recognize me and my little cousin as we sang to him, held his hand and told him we were going to do everything we could to help him get better. I am so thankful for that chance and seeing him as he was dying definitely helped to bring me closure. 

When I got back to school,from being with my family as we said goodbye to him, I was emotional on the inside but I didn’t want it to show because I wanted to be strong. I even found out when I got back to school that my 38 year old second cousin died from cancer that week as well. The only people I really let in on everything I was feeling and going through were my roommates. I was being ministered to left and right by girls on my hall, my r.a my sld’s but the one person I needed to be ministered by the most was the one who was the most distant. This was a relationship that I felt was so far gone without any hope left. I cannot sit here and write that things are back to normal with my savior in fact in all honestly I have doubted him more in the past two weeks that I have in my entire life. The only thing I am clinging onto right now is the truth that I know in my head. The truth from the past that he has revealed to me through different events and the scripture I have in front of me. This huge storm I am in right now is partially my fault and partially from what God is allowing to happen. I have absolutely no idea how taking my grandfather to be with him at this moment is going to work together for good in my story but I must cling to the promises in his word that. HE knows the plans he has for me and that the testing of my faith develops perseverance. I seriously wish I could be out of this storm but for now i’m in it and I don’t know when it will end. The only thing I can do is to be honest in saying that I am weak and broken but I know that soon my savior will swoop in and make me strong and healed.

My R.A showed me a really cool cycle of when we deal with things in life. The cycle is this HARD—> HARDER—>EASIER—>UNDER MY FEET. Things got a lot harder and they could continue to be that way for a while unless i fight through them. When they get easier I can’t just assume its under my feet, I really need to do work hard at recognizing what God wanted to teach me and then it will be under my feet. 

I am having one of the most broken years of my life and I don’t know why. For a person who wants to have everything under control and to plan everything out, not knowing is a huge deal. All I can ask is that you guys pray for me, pray that every single day I would get into the word every when it is the last thing I want to do. Pray that in the midst of all of this I can lead a group of girls who are looking up to me for guidance. 

After writing all of this I see how much I miss being able to be completely honest with people. I know not many people actually read my blog but it is such a great way for me to deal with all of my thoughts and emotions. All I can say is that… i’m struggling but I know I will come out a stronger person on the other end. 

Love,

Lizzy 

It’s time to blog people…

I can not believe it is time for my Sophomore year to start!! I feel like it was just yesterday that my mom was dropping me off at college for my freshman year! Even though it feels like just yesterday that I moved in, I also feel like I have grown so much since then. People always told me, “oh you will grow up so much and change your freshman year.” They were so right! I feel like I have changed so much and hopefully grew up some as well. 

Let me just tell you some of the God things that have happened so far this year… First of all, I have the best roommates a girl could ask for. I was so afraid to have 2 roommates and I was worried that it would be tough and we wouldn’t get along but let me just tell you, we get along SO well… I seriously LOVE them so much. We actually just got done playing the Party Rock Anthem and learning how to do the Robot move and to shuffle!! Definitely videos from our randomness to come… 

Tomorrow I start back blogging for Liberty, so I thought it would only be fitting to put a post on my own personal blog. 

This past week we have been doing the Prayer Leader training which has been good but really challenging. I was just so tired by the end of the week and overloaded with information. The speakers were all really great. Well with the exception for Elmer Towns talking about how he emailed Jerry Sr. the other day, or when he talked about how being fat is ugly hahah so funny. But we really did have the best of the best for speakers. 

The thing that hit me the most was a video by Louie Giglio about the Universe, mainly because that night I got to go to the Hillsong United concert and for some reason I felt like the overarching theme was about the grandness of the Universe and how GOD is SO HUGE!!! I was just in awe of him with so many different lyrics from their songs. 

Well, this blog was really rushed because I really need to get to bed. I have to get up and go into work for a meeting and then to start blogging. Check out my Liberty blog page in a few days, and there should be some new posts:

http://www.libertyu.com/index.cfm?PID=23194 

Love,

Lizzy 

My productive morning..

So this morning was super productive and I would to share not only what I got done but also what God taught me…

So I woke up and of course went straight to get coffee! This is the first morning that I had nothing planned so I sat down and had a long Jesus and me time! I’ve been working through Beth Moore’s study called Stepping Up (a journey through the Psalms of ascent). Today the study is EXACTLY what I needed to hear. I tend to get into this pattern when I go home that I just feel unproductive and I waste my time thinking about “when my life was busy..” In my case right now all I can think about is being back at Crossroads with everyone and getting to serve. I just kept feeling so unproductive and that I was not impacting the Kingdom. Sooo God decided to show me Psalm 126 this morning! In the study today we only talked about he first 3 verses but Beth Moore gave the commentary from James Limburg ” Psalm 126 comes from a people who are living between the times, between a good time remembered and another good time hope for.” This is exactly how I have felt but God really showed me that I don’t need to always be looking to the future for what he’s going to do in my life. I need to bask in the present and learn as much as I can now! 

I am so thankful that he revealed that to me because then I began to get productive with my day… 

I went for a 2 mile run in the crazy heat and it was a great run! I then came back and sat in my sweat for a few minutes to cool down.Then one thing after another just kept popping into my head that I needed to get done: book my plane tickets to go to Jacksonville in September, Buy textbooks on Amazon so I don’t get gipped by the LU bookstore, send messages to people, catch up on chatting with people! Then I got a really sad message from my dorm mom at BFA saying that our dorm dog had passed away and it was so sad to hear. That dog was like all of the girls dog but especially Luke’s dog. Definitely will keep them in my prayers because I know what it’s like to loose a pet that was like a family member. 

So now i’m going to head to walmart to pick up some things and hopefully continue to have a productive evening! 

Love you,

Lizzy 

All of Sweden sends our thoughts and prayers to the Norwegian people. We’re here by your side in these dark times. Remember that, Norway. We are your brothers. Always <3

(Source: worthrebloging, via iluvsweden)

Norway’s in terror today

pray for norway, pray for the families, the aftermath is going to be intense..

(Source: bragassucias)

Give me faith..

I have like 15 minutes to blog before I have to get out and hang out with the campers but I was just so burdened to write. Tonight we had a staff worship session and it was one of the most beautiful things ever. I really don’t know how to describe it other than the fact that it was pure, genuine, and holy. I have really been struggling this week because for some reason I just have not connected well with the elevation band. I sincerely miss Carl and the Nashvillains. Since musical worship is a huge part of how I talk to God, it has just been really tough. When I heard that we were doing a staff time of worship I was there in a heartbeat. Tonight moved me so much, even to tears (which isn’t hard to do).. 

Tomorrow will be 6 months since my grammy passed away. I think it was like 3 sunday’s ago that Matt preached on Anger and I realized that I really don’t have anger towards any people but I do have a lot of anger towards God. I thought I let go the fact that he took my grammy at such an early time, before (in my opinion) he should have. I was just SO MAD. Slowly God is showing me that it was the time that he called her home. It is taking a long time for my brain to get it because I am still so emotional about everything but he is so patient and he understands that it is going to take time! Tonight when we were singing the song “Give me Faith” (which is ironically by Elevation Band) God really showed me that I needed to have faith that he is GOOD and that he knew what he was doing. I DON’T know why he took her from me but he did. I just need to trust that he is GOD and that no matter what he is in control and EVERYTHING he does is GOOD. It is really starting to sink in… 

I really don’t have much time, like 10 minutes so i’m going to get freshened up and get my energy back up for these campers who I need to show God’s love to, just as he has shown it to ME tonight! I can’t tell you how much I LOVE the crossroads staff and their passion for the Lord. it blows me away..

Love,

Lizzy 

Week 4!!

I’m just going to be very blunt when I say that this was one of the best weeks of my life! There are so many reason’s for this. *Now, I realize that some of my campers from previous weeks might read this and I want to clarify something…This week was so amazing because of what God taught me, not necessarily that I favored the campers this week more than previous!*

I had planned to go to bed around now but I just couldn’t sleep without letting everyone know all that he has done this week in my life and how he has allowed me to be a part of and witness radical changes in camper’s lives! I went into this week thinking that I was going to be super tired and that I was not going to be able to give 100%. However, God was like..”umm Lizzy I will be the one giving you an abundant amount of strength to get through another week. AND if you try to do it on your own strength, you will fail” The crazy thing is that I didn’t sleep as much as previous weeks and I had more than enough strength. That was the first thing that the Lord did. 

The second thing that I was able to witness this week was spiritual warfare before my eyes. On monday, I seriously was shocked at everything that was going on for the staff (some of you saw my post at the beginning of the week). Someone told me that one of the staff members said something really profound which was that God was allowing this to happen to get us out of the way for the work he was going to do this week at Crossroads. I truly believe that Good conquered evil this week and the Kingdom of Light is just growing more and more! You will find me saying quite often now, Satan bring it on because my God is so much greater than you! I want to be very clear in this because I don’t want to sound like a crazy person BUT we seriously have someone who has come to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10) and we need to be aware of that daily. 

Now let me get to some of the good stuff. God brought a girl named Sarah into my life this week and she has been one of the biggest blessings ever!! She has been dealing with so much in her life and on Monday night she came to the realization that she wanted to be a follower of Jesus Christ! I had the privilege to “advise” her on Monday night during the service and she cried and poured her heart out to God. You could see that God had been breaking her for weeks and she finally fell on her knees before him and decided to give everything to him. This is the awesome creepy part.. out of over 800 kids at the camp I randomly chose her to pray with after the alter call and she ended up being across the hall from me in decker dorm!! Even cooler, a lot of the things she has been dealing with, I have dealt with in the past! 

Now let me tell you what Sarah taught me this week without even knowing it. 

1. God can use you horrible past circumstances for good and nothing from your past is too big or small for God to use for his glory. 

2. Don’t judge by outward appearance. Through more than just Sarah, God taught me to get to know a person before you make a preconceived judgement of them! That is something that I seriously needed! 

3. When the Holy Spirit enters a person, drastic life changes will be seen! 

Over all Sarah is such a humble, loving, caring and super influential person. I really want you to be praying for her as she goes home and as she faces the same challenges that she did before camp. Pray that God would give her strength and that she would rely on him! 

On final thought that God showed me last night during worship. Carl sings this song called Honestly and the chorus is this:

Honestly I need to be broken

Honestly I need to fall down

Go ahead and shake my foundations

Cause honestly I’m figuring out

That of all that I have

All that I need is You 

Honestly…

This song just reminded me that we daily need to tell God to break us and that we need to fall at his feet. It doesn’t need to be a one time thing we do when we “get saved” but it needs to be a daily submission to God. This song has been like my favorite song of the summer and worship time with Carl and the Nashvillains has been so amazing. I can’t count the number of times that I was completely lost in worshiping the Lord…

Well I am going to bed because i’m seriously tired and if Matt Orth see’s that I was up writing this late, I’m going to be in the dog house! haha but I just had to share all the amazing things going on. Thanks so much for praying for me, the staff and the campers! 

Love,

Lizzy 

Please Pray!

I can’t even tell you all the things that we at crossroads need prayer for because there are just so many! Here are a few that come right to mind! 

1) Heather Cartee is in Labor and Carl is on his way to Nashville as I write. Pray that he makes it in time for the Birth and for safety for Heather and the Baby! Pray for the band (Craig, Boski, Ryan) as they are leading worship now without Carl! 

2) We have so many staff members that are sick. Pray for healing and a new burst of energy. 

3) Pray for activities outside today. The heat index is supposed to be around 105 and we have a lot of tournaments going on. We also have one less staff member to help run those, so pray for extra strength in the Athletics team! 

4) Continues Prayer for Clayton’s rib and leg injury. 

5) Pray for students who confessed sin for the first time yesterday and are now walking with the Lord. 

6) Most of all, pray that satan would be bound from this campus and that God’s mighty hand would be seen. Pray in Jesus name that chains would be broken and that satan’s lies would be exposed! 

Thanks to all! 

~Lizzy 

Where to start…

This is probably going to be a very messy and unorganized post but I just don’t know where to start because the Lord has been doing to many amazing things in my life and in the lives of the people around me! 

First of all I want to start off talking about the campers I have been able to interact. I do realize that some of my campers will read this and know that you all have been a huge part of what has made my crossroads experience absolutely amazing! Week 1 was so great, I felt like it was a perfect week to have as my first week. I made a lot of relationships with campers that really touched me and I will continue to keep up with them! Week 2 was good, only it was very different from week 1. I loved the churches I had on my hall like seriously loved them and I felt ministered to by the chaperons so much! I was just getting over a cold week 2 which definitely effected my energy level. Week 3 was super awesome! I yet again got amazing churches and the girls were crazy!! We had so much fun laughing and playing games and eating snacks! :P There was one girl in particular that I would love to keep in touch with to encourage with her calling into ministry! 

Now let me give you a little taste of what has been going on in my own personal life from being here and what God has taught me! When I came to crossroads, I expected to be changing lives of girls through what God has done in me. I definitely think the Lord has used me in some ways but let me tell you this… He has used others to stretch and grow me more so much more than I have to others. The thing that has stuck out to me the most is the different Godly women here. 

The women in this community genuinely want to help the single girls mature in to women who will one day become wives if God calls them to that. I think that just seeing them live daily as wives has been a huge testimony of the work I need the Lord to do in my own life before I even consider dating someone.

Today in particular made me realize how much work I have to do to battle lust in my life. Which means taking even more preventative measures. At BRCC today, matt spoke on lust using matthew 5:27-30 and it was SO powerful. He really touched on the fact that a lot of times we just enjoy the temptation and we should just flee at the first sign that we are being tempted. For example, I love to watch the bachelor/bachelorette but I am just feeding this lustful desire and lusting after something that is SO unrealistic. I am really just setting my future marriage up for failure when I obsess over these overly romantic dates they go on. What is reallly crazy is that last night I asked my RA next year to just pray about that area of my life and she replied back telling me a lot of the same things matt preached on today and so it was sooo cool to see God use two different people to remind me that I need to get that area of my life worked out! Even though i’ve taken this year to be single, and to not have many guy friends, I still entertain the idea and enjoy when guys flirt with me and I need to just continue to remind myself to run from that now! 

That was a really honest paragraph but I really believe in vulnerability and this will also  help to keep me accountable in pursuing purity and godliness. So please be praying for me as I am devoting this year to the Lord. Pray that I would run to him for everything and for strength to battle these things!

I’m trying to think if there is anything else to tell you all and i’m pretty sure there is a lot i’m forgetting but for now that is all folks.

Lots of Love,

Lizzy

p.s please be praying for week 4 because I can already tell staff are exhausted and being a little short. Please pray for patience and that we would make time to stay in the word as we are trying to do ministry! Pray for the health of our staff, in particular Clayton because he has 3 separated ribs and an issue with his leg as well and he is in a lot of pain and he can’t sleep. Pray in Jesus name that Satan would be bound from this campus, the campers, and the staff!! Thanks!! 

The Past 2 weeks..

So basically I have been really bad at keeping everyone updated on my life working at summer camp! But here goes for a quick catch up! I usually don’t have time in the mornings to write because i’m either hanging out with other staff or napping but today I was just so excited and I couldn’t nap any longer (partly because maintenance just burst into my room and woke me up)! 

So I arrived here 2 weeks ago and immediately got thrown into staff training, getting to know over 60 staff members and getting acquainted with Gardner-Webb’s campus! Staff training was a lot of fun and then on last monday we had our first registration day! We had over 31 churches come and it was an exhausting but amazing day! Clayton preached the gospel and 35 responded and gave their lives to Jesus for the first time.That evening I was able to advise a girl named Harlee (such a cool name right?!), who completely surrendered her life to the Lord and it was so amazing to see her heart finally won over to the Lord. She cried her little eyes out and it seriously touched my heart to have been able to witness that. She even got up in front of everyone at the end of the week and gave a quick 20 second testimony!!! 

Week 1 for me was awesome, I connected really well with the campers and I felt like the Lord put my in some situations that were perfect for me and I was able to really speak into some students lives! I LOVE being on the quad staff because we build so many relationships with kids who are just passing through and really don’t have their own niche! We get to pretty much play games all day long and talk.. so awesome!! For some reason there was one youth group in particular that I bonded with really well and that was so awesome and I really miss having them this week! 

Week 2 has been good but I haven’t made the same type of relationships as last week. For some reason, I feel like i’ve had to take on a disciplinarian type of roll this week and a lot of the kids dislike that (understandably)! three times a week I have meal shift duty which means I also am the dress code nazi. on monday night I had to tell 35 girls to change their shorts because they were too short. talk about emotionally draining, especially when they fight you on it. now most of you who know me know that i really dislike it when people tell me to change my outfit and i have definitely struggled with authority in that sense. so this has been a really good challenge for me, one that I definitely didn’t know what i was getting myself into. i guess i have never been the person people hate because i tend to be a people pleaser, but God is definitely stretching me in a different area. I also have chaperone’s coming up to me all the time being like “can you tell them to stop doing this!!!!?” i’m not sure why but i seem to look like i’m in charge or something?! haha so anyways this week has just been very different for me. 

HUGE PRAISE…. After over 2 months of working on the verification process, it is FINISHED and I have secured my housing for the fall at Liberty!!!!! SUCH a huge relief. The Lord has really been stretching me in the area of trust. I have definitely been under spiritual attack since being here but let me tell you something, the Lord is so much greater, stronger and mighty and nothing that satan throws at me will take my focus away from the ministry God has placed me in! I am honored that the Lord is using me to advance his kindgom. He is so good. 

Well I have to go to lunch because my break time is up! Send me an update on your lives and I will respond when I get the chance! KEEP PRAYING FOR CROSSROADS!!! 

LOVE,

Lizzy