some things i'm learning about SIN.

Friends… I have to start off by saying the post before this, about shenanigans. Well folks, I WON. It was a crazy week and a half and I couldn’t have done it with out help.

Anyway that’s not what that is about. I want to share with you something the Lord is teaching me a lot about… and that is sin. Sarah, Caitlin and I have been meeting together in preparation for our time in Honduras this summer. During our meeting time we have been going over sin, its root, nature, strategy and goal.

Over the last few weeks things have happened that have really tested what I’ve learned. One big thing I’ve learned is why God allows Christians to struggle with sin… God could have wiped out sin all together, without exerting any effort at all. But.. he didn’t. Our full and total deliverance from sin’s presence will come when we receive our glorified bodies. Oh what a glorious day! To understand the purpose we have to remember that God IS sovereign and he does what whatever he pleases, he works all things according to his will and we do not know the full extent of his sovereign will –Psalm 115:3, Ephesians 1:11, Deuteronomy 29:29. The author points out… “But we know this: in His wisdom, God has chosen not to remove the presence of sin from his redeemed… A believer’s struggle with indwelling sin somehow fits into God’s overarching purpose to glorify himself and conform believers to the image of his Son. Paul says: And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the first born among many broethren.”-Romans 8:28,29. From this explanation we see some reasons why God allows his children to struggle with sin…1. To make us humble and dependent on God… Our struggle with sin reveals our weakness and only magnifies God’s strength. By his grace he allows us to see ourselves for what we really are: weak, prone to sin, utterly dependent on him who proves to be faithful ALWAYS. 2. To cultivate thankfulness… God is our deliverer. He has triumphed over death and sin. 3. To promote compassion… we as sinners saved by grace alone through faith alone can relate to the lost. That should promote compassion in us for others. 4. To keep your focus on the gospel… the author writes so much better than I when he says…”What causes us to survey the cross each day and marvel at the power of God’s grace? Is it not the sin that clings so closely, the sin we find ourselves confessing and forsaking each day? God wants to keep the cross fresh in our minds. He wants the gospel to occupy our thoughts. Think about it. We can hardly make it through a worship service without a wicked thought assaulting our minds. Even in the name of fellowship we often commit some of the most ghastly sins with our tongue. The presences of sin and our ongoing struggle keep us focused on the beauty of the gospel.” 5. To make us long for heaven… this world is not our home, our citizenship is in heaven.

The second thing that I am learning is huge for me. We are called to make war on our sin, to hunt it down and kill all remaining sin. Look what Paul says in Romans 8:12-14… “So then, brethren, we are under obligation. Not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh- for if you are living according to the flesh, you mush die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” There is no bargaining with sin. There can be no negotiation. It has to be full out war. Well… to make war on the enemy first you must know the enemy. We must know the nature of sin, the strategy of sin and the goal of sin in order to MAKE WAR! The nature of sin… sin is above all else deceptive. Sin promises good but delivers things that are harmful. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it was conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. James 1:14-15. Sin is personal in nature. Man’s fallen nature has the tendency to strongly desire whatever will satisfy it. Sin is deceitful and crafty. Sin is not merely a spontaneous act. It is the result of a process. This slapped me in the face- knowing that my sin is the result of a process. Makes you think about things right? The strategy of sin… the number one strategy of sin is to excite our desires and wants, tempting us with an opportunity to fulfill it. What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? It not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. James 4:1-2  The progression?- we want, we need, we demand, and finally we take, whatever the cost. Sin is personal. It finds, targets and attacks us at our most vulnerable points. Puritan pastor John Owen says this about the strategy of sin: Sin is always acting, always conceiving, and always seducing and tempting. Who can say that he has ever had anything to do with God or for God which indwelling sin has not tried to corrupt?... there is not a day but sin foils or is foiled, prevails or is prevailed upon. It will always be so while we live in this world. Sin will not spare for one day.  There is no safety but in a CONSTANT warfare for those who desire deliverance from sin’s perplexing rebellion. The goal of sin… sin wants to master us. Look at Cain in Genesis 4- If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not to well, sin is couching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it. God warned Cain that if he chose not to obey, if he chose to give into his desires, if he chose sin then ever-present sin would fulfill its power over him. Sin accomplished its goal to deceive, dominate and destroy Cain. The author describes sin this way… Sin is entrenched deep within the heart, undetected but not inactive. Ouch. Sin is rooted deep in my heart and it longs for my destruction. Sin diminishes the hope of the gospel. When I think of how present, deep-rooted, heinous, and personal my sin is it is hard to focus on the hope of the gospel. My vision is clouded by feelings of despair and unworthiness that encourage me to look to myself to fix things instead of running to my Father.

This has been so good for me. It has been good but I would be lying to you if I said it had not been hard. It is hard to stare my sinfulness in the face to deal with it, to confess it and make war against it. Recognizing my sin and learning its nature, strategy and goal have driven me to long for closer communion with my Father… The One who has triumphed over sin. The One who has destroyed it. It has driven me to long to be a woman of prayer. 

So... my prayer at the moment is Psalm 39... "For I am ready to fall, and my pain is ever before me. I confess my iniquity; I am sorry for my sin."

shenanigans.

it's that time of year again. time for 200 crazy college students to change their identities on every social network they're on, betray those who are close to them, sleep with one eye open and have a break out from the amount of stress they're under. yep!! it's time for SHENANIGANS. for those of you who don't know what i'm talking about i'll give you a short description. shenanigans is a game of water gun assassins. each person gets a target to kill (with a water gun of course) but is also given to someone as a target. you are given a 48 to 72 hour time frame to kill your target without being killed before you expire. it's the most stressful as well as the most fun thing we do at Auburn RUF. to get everyone excited for shenanigans my sweet friend Sarah Heinss made an AMAZING video. go watch it and enjoy.

voy a regresar.

I am beyond excited and incredibly humbled by the news I am about to share with you. In December I sent in my application to serve as a Buckner intern again in Honduras. Last Thursday I had my phone interview and they let me know that I have been accepted. This is a huge answer to prayer for me. I am overwhelmed with so many emotions. I was thinking back to last summer, over the past few years of school, and to the summer approaching. One thing I kept coming back to was how sweet it was to be so far from comfort. He brought me to a university of 24,000 people. He placed me in relationships with people I may have never met otherwise. He asked me to give four weeks of my summer to serve Him in another country. He gave me a calm heart and a patience that could not have come from me. He is once again taking me far from comfortable with another summer in Honduras- this time for the entire summer. 

I am so excited for this opportunity. I am so humbled that God would chose to allow me to be apart of His awesome plan. Although He doesn't need me, He choses to use me. God is so faithful. He is already showing me so much. He has been so sweet to let me see a glimpse of His plan for me in Honduras but also to remind me that I have a job here as well, and that job is to love Him, love others and bring Him glory. The Jesus that is with me at Auburn is the same Jesus that is with me in Honduras. 

"But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me." -1 Corinthians 15:10

Last summer I spent my time in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. As you know from my blog post about them, I fell in love with the children and people I met there. They have such a large part of my heart. This summer, Buckner's greatest need for interns is in Tegucigalpa and Roatan. This means I will be in the same country but not city as my precious niños. My heart both aches and rejoices at this. (Is that even possible?) While of course I will miss my niños in San Pedro, I am so excited to share the love of Christ with the people in Tegucigalpa and Roatan. 

One thing that we do so often here in the States is talk about the orphans and afflicted in the world. We even have compassion for them. But oh how different it is to hold them in your arms, to hold their hands, to look at their beautiful faces and stare into their eyes. It changes everything. 

This is going to be a journey for me. I want to share it with you. I don't want to sugarcoat things. I want to be vulnerable about my life, my feelings and my relationship with my King! I pray that you will be able to see Jesus in my weakness. As I begin this journey I ask that you would join me in prayer. Prayer is the vital breath of the Christian; not the thing that makes him alive, but the evidence that he is alive. -O.Chambers Pray that God will first and foremost prepare my heart, that He would continually remind me of my need for Him, that He will rid me of all my pride and selfishness, that I would be obedient, that I would love and love well, that I would be disciplined, that I would aggressively attack the sin in my life, that I would give Him all the Glory and that I would honor Him. Since picking up my life and moving it to another country for over two months is quite expensive, today marks the start to a long support raising journey. I trust that the Lord will get me where I feel He is calling me this summer. I trust this and I know it; however, when I am alone with a lot of time to think, my flesh comes out to get me. When I flesh think, nervousness, fear, worry- they all come at me. Friends, I ask that you would pray for my thinking, that it will be Spirt-thinking. 

Thank you so much for taking time to read about something that is so dear to me and an irresistible passion in my life. 

-Mary Elizabeth

PS... the title of this post means... "I am returning." 

"so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." -Ephesians 3:17-19

So the holidays are here and I have so much that I am thankful for. I am thankful for my precious mother, who is the most beautiful example of a godly woman for me. She is the classiest woman I know. She is a faithful wife and devoted mother. She teaches me so much about life, prayer, responsibility and how to love with my whole heart. 

I am thankful for my father who loves me unconditionally. I am a daddy's girl. The way my dad loves me is an awesome reminder of the Heavenly Father's love for his children. He teaches me about hard work, diligence, what a godly man looks like and how to study the Word.

I am thankful for my siblings, who are my very best friends. They see me at my worst and still they love me. They are always there to keep me company and make me laugh. They are awesome!

I am thankful for grace. Pondering the fact that God, by his own sovereign will, decided to be gracious and merciful to me is overwhelming. It is thrilling. I am thankful he poured out his grace on me, forgiving all my sin. That he granted me the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and continues to grow me in the understanding of his Word. I am his child. "For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace." -John 1:16

I am thankful for Honduras! This is something that is very fresh on my mind tonight. I have a few things to finalize on my application and then I am sending it in, applying to be an intern in Honduras again this summer. God not only used the people in Honduras to grow me but the people working for Buckner International. I am so thankful for Buckner International. Simply put, Buckner's desire is to share the love of Christ serving orphans, at-risk children and families. They are so good at what they do. The people who work for Buckner are amazing. They are some of the most beautiful pictures of what a true servant looks like. "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world" -James 1:27. This is a video from some of the students that participated in the internship program this summer. Crista Hickman and Christina Swisher are two of my dear friends. You will see the immense impact our time in Honduras had on their lives. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acsU37ZJeuA

Tears slowly make their way down my face as I see the faces of the children I love flash across the screen. They have so much of my heart. They are a part of my life. They are a picture of hope for me. So many of their stories remind me that God has been faithful in our past and present and that, that gives me the hope that He will be faithful in our future. They remind me that he has given us an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away(1 Peter 1:4). 

I praise God for the passion he has awakened in my heart to serve him and the people of Honduras. I thank him for granting me patience and reminding me that my mission field is here for the moment. God is faithful. I thank him that he grants me mercy, shows me grace, teaches me his Word and allows me to be a part of his work. 

I am thankful for Christ. To know Christ is to have his righteousness, his holiness, and his virtue imputed to us, which makes us right before God. Jesus was born to die. Because of Christ's death we are able to lose the fading robe of our reputation and gain the marvelous and incorruptible robe of the righteousness of Christ. "...not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith." -Philippians 3:9 

heavy heart.

My heart is heavy tonight. I have been thinking a lot about my precious friend in Honduras, Maryuri. I have written about her before. She is a fourteen year old little girl growing into a beautiful young woman. She lives in Casitas Adolecentes with 125 + other teenage girls. Her story is in an earlier post... I pray for her daily and think of her often. She has especially been on my heart and mind the last few weeks. Buckner has a Transitional home that girls from Casitas can be transferred to if they show good behavior and growth at Casitas. These are also girls who have no other chance of getting out of Casitas. My precious friend who works with Buckner let me know that Maryuri was being considered for the Transitional home. Being moved to the Transitional home is not a light process. A quick recap of Maryuri's story: her father left when she was young, her mother abandoned her and left her with an aunt and her aunt brought her to Casitas to leave her. Maryuri is wise beyond her years. She thinks about things a lot, sometimes too much. She analyzes everything. She is so hopeful and has a joy beyond comprehension. Bovi shared with me that Maryuri was not sure about moving to the Transitional home. I think that she is clinging to some glimmer of hope that her mother will come for her and if she moves to the home that hope may disappear. It is so hard for me to be here while she is going through this. I feel like if I were there we could talk all of this out. I know her. I know how she thinks. Tomorrow Bovi and his sister Grisselle (I love them dearly) are spending the day at Casitas. They both have a letter from me to give to Maryuri. A letter is the best that I can do and it kills me. I long so badly to hold her in my arms and speak truth to her while giving her love but I cannot. So I have to be okay with my letter. I selfishly want for her to say yes right away, to move to the Transitional home where she will be loved by 7 other girls around her age and be discipled and loved and learn things. I, as hard as it is, am clinging to the truth that God is sovereign. He knows exactly what Maryuri needs. My desire is for Him to be glorified. So... my prayer for Maryuri is this, that she would cling to the cross, that she would taste God's word and see the person of Jesus Christ through it, that the Word of God would be her joy and her dwelling place, that she will seek earnestly His face and that God would give her a discerning spirit. I pray that she clings to the truth He reveals to us in His word- that the Father on high in his grace and sovereign initiative has sought her, that Jesus has provided for our salvation in His death. I pray that I would be reminded of all of this as well. That I would cling to his promises that He will sustain, that He loves us and He does nothing foolish, that His plan is PERFECT. I pray for His will to be done. 


"Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name. When he calls to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation." -Psalm 91:14-16


"Por cuanto ha puesto su amor en mí -dice el Señor-, yo lo libraré; lo pondré en alto, por cuanto ha conocido mi Nombre. 'Me invocará y yo le responderé. Con él estaré en la angustia, lo libraré y lo glorificaré.' 'Lo saciaré de larga vida, yo le mostraré mi salvación'" -Salmo 91:14-16

a friend of mine showed me this today and i have fallen in love with Lil P'Nut!!!!


my new love. :)

Ada Laine.

I am excited. More than excited really. Tonight my amazing older sister is going to the hospital and within the next twenty-four hours I will get to meet and hold the precious little girl that I have prayed for for 9 months. I cannot wait to introduce the world to Ada Laine Weathers. :)


For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. 
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
-Psalm 139:13-16