Listen here..

So to anybody who knows me in the least bit will be surprised when I state I participated in Missouri State's Sorority life recruitment. Yes, hold your laughter, but I thought it would be a great way to meet new people and make friends or fimiliar faces. If I felt God telling me to join a sisterhood on campus I would do what he was calling me to do, no matter how much I despised it.
Day 1 was split into two days and consisted of going to all six sorority houses and basically speed-dating individual girls to see if you clicked with them; every sorority girl swore the connection they have with a sorority sister is instant and deeper beyond explanation, but a majority of the time I felt like I was almost cheating on my best friends back home. We toured their houses and got a feel of what we were looking for in a sorority. Initially, there were houses right off I knew God wasn't calling me to, in fact He was calling me to run into the opposite direction. At the end of Day 1 we had to choose our top four houses. On Saturday, Day 2, we went back to our top four houses, providing that they wanted us back, and again, I wasn't feeling like God was speaking to me either way or clear enough to drop and with only one day left I felt like it wouldn't hurt to check out these houses a little deeper. At the end of Day 2 we would eliminate two more houses, leaving only two houses in the running to call our home, being that the next day was our last, I still had time to discern what God wanted me to do. So I went to Day 3.
Throughout my experience I'd asked multiple people to be praying for my decision to be the right one. A group of 100 plus girls sit in a room waiting to be called to make their vote of their favorite home and second best. A home of girls, sisters, that would have their back throughout their lifetime, not just their four years on campus. I walked into the big scary, closed-off decision room and sat next to a girl at a computer who was there to help me make my decsion in a salmon colored t-shirt, the MSU sign they were a sorority girl. It was then when I heard God's voice, the one that I had been pushing away to see all my options before my decsion but it couldn't be quieted any longer. God didn't want me there, I wasn't supposed to call these girls my sisters for life. Part of me was debating if I should just stick it out for the free t-shirt we got from the sorority that chose us on the following bid day but I knew I wasn't supposed to. I had silenced what God had been trying to tell me since the beginning that this wasn't where He wanted me. How hard it was for me to muster up the courage to tell this sorority girl I didn't want a part of her lifestyle, not because it wasn't of God, but becuase it wasn't of God's plan for me. In their sorority these girls have found their sisters for life, who they're supposed to be and gained a confidence in that. I already knew who I was or am becoming, and my sisters for life are my sisters in Christ. So I left, after telling a girl I wasn't supposed to be here I walked out upset I hurt her feelings but estatic I knew I made the decision God wanted me to.
*Later that same night* I was on Facebook when I remembered my friend from Mizzou said her friend from Mizzou has a friend at Missouri State that's struggling to find Christian girls to hang out with. I found out her name and added her as a friend. She knew who I was (or at least I was a friend of a friend's friend) and almost seemed relieved that I had added her for immediately she messaged me. Right then I knew that my sisterhood wasn't found within a chapter but in Christ. And as I go meet Chelsey now for coffee I know that my journey is right on track with His plan.

This Little Light Of Mine

Today my roommate and I attended church on our first Sunday at Missouri State University :) After signing up with some campus ministries we had both been recieving texts about certain churches to check out. As we drove through looking for the "contemporary college church" we ended up at a Methodist church. Right off the bat it was obvious that it wasn't the church we recieved the texts about for we were the youngest people there by a good 40 years. Immediately we were mobbed by old person after old person introducing themselves to us. Showing us pictures of their college-student-grandchilren and reminding us of the homemade sweet rolls in the kitchenette. I explained to my roommate that it wasn't too soon to ditch, we still had a bible study to sit through and the church service wasn't for another hour, but we decided to stay.
It wasn't until I was sitting in a pue in pants that weren't 100% cotton with presentably brushed hair that I realized I wasn't at Gateway. It would've been easy for me to close my mind off and think about what my little church was doing out in Blue Springs and how cool we are because we don't wear dry cleaned clothes or have stained glass windows. Then it hit me: the same God that was at Point 11 with me three weeks ago is the same God that is sitting in this pue with me. The same God that hangs out in Hall McCarter on Wednesday lives inside of these AARP members in the chapel here in Springfield. Not for a second have I felt away from home because I know that God is my home.
The pastor proceeded his message in about shining our light, that without the Holy Spirit there is no hope for light. He showed us a flashlight without batteries and obviously, the flashlight didn't work. No one wants a flashlight without batteries; it's useless; just as we are without the Holy Spirit. There is no point in living if we're not doing it for a reason, whatever that reason may be. I made my decision known how I want to live my life in November of 2006 at Woods Chapel Bible Fellowship when I was baptized and I wrote down on a banner "I'm all in" at camp in 2010 in Colorado and people know, people saw.
"Obviously, I am not trying to win the approval of people but of God, if pleasing people were my goal I would not be a servant of the Lord" BUT those people are visible reminders to my commitment and I'm not going to let some actual pants and brushed hair on Sunday mornings make me forget that. My race isn't over, there is no time for a break, I haven't won the prize so I continue to beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached I myself will not be disqualified.