"You may be one person to the world, but you may be the WORLD to ONE person."

Isn't that an amazing quote?! One of the biggest goals we try to achieve in our lives is to change the world or to be someone famous and be well known to the world. I remember ever since I was a little kid that I wanted a career in helping people. I've always dreamed of traveling around the world to help EVERYONE all across the globe. Over time, I realized that being the world to one person is a more tangible goal and accomplishment. If we focus too much on changing the outside world, we will miss opportunities in changing someone's personal world. In order to start changing the outside world, we must start changing the world within one person because we must change our attitudes, feelings, and views in order to make the kind of movement we want to make. There was this movie I watched before called, "Pay it Forward." The basic synopsis of the movie that I pulled from Wikipedia says, "When 11-year-old Trevor McKinney (Osment) begins seventh grade in Las Vegas, Nevada, his social studies teacher Eugene Simonet (Spacey) gives the class an assignment to devise and put into action a plan that will change the world for the better. Trevor calls his plan "pay it forward", which can be described as a charitable pyramid scheme, based on good deeds rather than profit. "Paying it forward" means the recipient of a favor does a favor for a third party rather than paying the favor back."

One of the most impacting things we can do is to show other people acts of kindness, love, and forgiveness. I'm sure you have all heard the quote, "Treat others as you would like to be treated." Step outside of your own shoes and step inside somebody else's shoes. The effect of how you treat other people is truly like a domino effect.

The Lord never ceases to amaze me. Everyday I wake up in excitement to see what God is going to do in my life and other people's lives. I want to blog about all that the Lord has done for me, but there are not enough words...well not enough EXTRAORDINARY words to express how I feel. I was thinking about this the other day: if I had known back then that putting all my trust, mind, body, soul, and spirit in the Lord would help me as much as it has these past four months, I would have done it in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, I was unaware because of this materialistic world that tempts me constantly. I would have gone through my first three years of college with a breeze. I look back now and realize how much unnecessary stress I was putting on myself. I got so caught up in the demands of the world that I forgot about the Lord at times. Ever since I started to fully put my life in the hands of God, I really started to see the dramatic difference in how I live my life now compared to then. I no longer feel stressed, weary, worried, forgotten, lonely or unhappy. The Lord has helped me with so many of my habitual sins. I remember when I first tried to give up alcohol, but failed to do so after the first month or two because I was trying to do it out of my own strength. My strength cannot accomplish anything unless I have the Lord in me. Now, I can honestly say that I could care less for alcohol. The first time I tried giving it up, I regretted it because I felt like I was giving up part of my social life, but the one thing I didn't think about at that time was giving up my relationship with the Lord.

On a different note, I did a seven days of fasting last week. I have never felt so empowered before until I felt the urge to fast. It was very tough, but the Lord gave me so much strength and will power to endure each hunger pain. It was so wonderful to have the few friends that I told, to support me each day. Fasting taught me how to not live life by flesh, but by spirit.

Yesterday, I had such a great time bonding with WOHIC. I haven't had a good time like that in a while. We played volleyball for such a long time. I missed playing sports so it brought back a lot of memories for me. I'm so happy that I'm starting to get to know the WOHIC members more and more. I finally feel like I have a place where I belong. I finally feel like my life means something.

This past Sunday's sermon was about a dangerous church. God is not interested in a pretty, aesthetic church, but a DANGEROUS, bold, and daring church. The 12 qualities of a dangerous church are:

1. Obedience
2. Prayer
3. Community
4. Controversial
5. Supernatural
6. Messiah message
7. Messiah ministry
8. Leadership
9. Contributors
10. Simplicity
11. Worship
12. Empowered message

I want to be a dangerous church member.

Matthew 10:39~"Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."

Yes...I have lost my life for the Lord these past few months so that I may find it again in a purified and Christ-like form. I don't even know where to begin with all the great things that have been happening in my life these past few weeks. I'm discovering strength I never knew I had before more and more each day through the Lord. It's indeed the best feeling I've ever felt yet. I'm battling temptations day by day and defeating them day by day. It's such a heroic feeling to know you've conquered the enemy. My relationship is going great, my job is going great with the raise I recently got, my family has resolved their issues, my faith is growing bigger each day, my good friend now has a place to stay because my family has welcomed him into our home, opportunities have been opening up for me through people I'm encountering, and I've been reconnecting my friends with the Lord again. Prayer is SO powerful!