Bitterness and other negative emotions.

Yes, this is another one of those "I've been thinking" blog posts. You people haven't been getting cooking posts because I haven't had time to cook, just work. And learn. Hence, these blog posts, the thoughts of a fifteen year old girl that probably aren't significant in a world of six billion people, but ohwell. I need to let this out before I explode, okay?? Okay.
So, I've been thinking. About bitterness mostly, and forgiveness. That kind of thing. When somebody sins against you, or hurts you exceedingly, or even constantly. Because pretty much everybody's been sinned against or been offended, and bitterness is something I'm seeing a lot, even in my own church. The whole "Well that was just inexcusable..." attitude, and sometimes "She doesn't deserve to be forgiven!". And that's something that I've struggled with a lot, especially this past year, is bitterness and forgiveness. And not just with an acquaintance, but with someone that I live and interact with and see daily. You know what bitterness boils down to? Pride. Us letting our hurt feelings get in the way of loving someone. Us thinking ourselves above and somehow less sinful than that person. The Devil whispering in our ear that we need to hold onto our hurt rather than just let it go. And so we do. And our hearts and sometimes our lives get filled with and hindered by this sin. But if you turn it around, look at it from a different perspective, and quit listening to the Devil, then it makes it a lot easier to let it all go. Because everybody in the world has sinned, meaning you. Meaning that you are just as unlovely as the next guy, even the guy who's offended you or makes your life miserable. And God is constantly, daily forgiving you of your sin, if you are trusting in Him. And do you deserve it? No. Not one of us do. And yet He gives us His grace. Lavishes it on us, actually. None of us deserve to be forgiven, and the absolute best way of showing Christ to someone is by loving them. And Love keeps no record of wrong. So let God wash you of your bitterness, and forgive the person you're holding something against. If God can daily forgive a world of His people who constantly mess up and are undeserving, you can forgive that one person you have something against.
Just some food for thought.
-Esther <3

Humans are weird.

So every once in a while, I'll be sitting in the car or laying awake at night, and I'll think, wow, humans are just plain weird. And because it comes into my head a lot, I thought I'd list a few of the reasons that us humans are just plain weird.

-We transport ourselves in large metal vehicles that we mass produce and they're so much apart of our lives that we don't even think about it.
-We have never-ending rows of poles in our towns that wires charged with electricity hang off of. Without these wires, we pretty much can't function. We also don't usually think about this.
-Come to think of it, we don't think. Unless it's the "philosophical" (-insert sarcastic laugh here-) kind. The kind that inspires people to make useless ten minute youtube videos of themselves talking radically because they think they aren't special or something. Sheesh.
-We let ourselves become distracted by things of the world and ignore God, who's staring at us lovingly with open arms, and then we wail. "Nobody loves me!!"
-We're becoming harder to entertain. Unless you have a iPad 2, you pretty much have nothing to do. Oh, and you're also not cool. People who are easily amused are going to be the happiest people, in this world. And they'll probably be the ones with more money in their wallets, too.
-All of our News, National or Local, is depressing.

Those are just some of the things I think are weird about the human race in general. We pick up weird habits! And we're really dumb. We're like...blind. Even us who know Jesus as our Savior. We just live our lives, and don't notice anything. Not as we truly should.

Do something for me, please. Look at your hand. Either one, it doesn't matter. Study it. Look at the wrinkles and lines and crevices, the occasional freckle or scar, and the unique fingerprints God Himself chose for you. Now move your hand. Do you know what just happened? You thought about moving your hand in less than the blink of an eye, and then your brain sent a message to your hand, and it moved. Isn't that incredible?!?! And you move a lot every day. I'm moving right now, pushing buttons on a laptop while I think about what to say. And we don't even think about this! We encounter it everyday, so it's ordinary and plain to us. Now I don't really know much about nerves, or how they work. But God created us incredible, so we can move and run and walk, and sometimes even jump-rope. He made us so that when we get really really happy, we can't hold it in, but instead scrunch up our faces and make peals of something we've named Laughter. Isn't Life incredible?!?! You can keep your Ipads and Fords, I'm going to sit here and look at this tree. It's a really beautiful tree, really huge. And it came from a little acorn. How? Um. Water and air. Plus sunlight. Crazy, huh?

There's all of this crazy beauty around me, and I can't help but notice and marvel at it, and worship God for it. I find that I can worship God just as easily when I took at a tree than when I'm in church. You may think I'm crazy, or weird. My friends are kind and call me passionate instead. ;)

So do something for me, if you please. Smile, a lot. Notice things. Look at the bigger picture by noticing the little things. :) The next time you're outside, whether it's hot, cold, rainy or dry, take a giant breath and thank God for oxygen and lungs, sky and clouds, random things in front of you. Try worshiping God when you see what seem to be simple things. Please.

It's dark out, and I'm done talking. ;) God Bless you all, have a good week.
-Esther <3

The longest blog post evaaahh.

Okay people! I beg pardon for not posting in over a MONTH. *cringe* Don't hurt meeeee! 

So the last time I posted, I was about to leave for the lovely state of Indiana. Wellguesswhat! I'm currently in the lovely state of Indiana, doing missionary work like a crazy lady, and having wayyy too much fun. So I've been here for a month, and a whole bunch of things have happened, and I can't tell you everything. But I wish I could!! I'll just tell you the highlights and bring you up to speed. We arrived in Indiana (in the late night, like 2 AM! Crazy train people kept us up, too, so we barely slept...) and the next week we started our pre-training. We learned a lot, and then all of a sudden we were whisked off to actual Training. And Training was intense, dude. We were evaluated and and sat through classes and were evaluated some more and then a a LITTLE bit of sleep and then did it all again. But it was totally worth it because I learned so much there, and all of the people there were incredible. So this week we started doing 5-Day Clubs, clubs for children where we teach them the Gospel, Bible stories, memory verses, and play games and stuff with them. 

Awesome story #1:

Monday morning we're at our 2nd club, and no kids come. So we go out to give invitation flyerish things to kids we find, and we found some who said they'd come the next day. And then we saw this little group of kids playing underneath a really pretty tree, and Bethany suggested that we present the Wordless Book (a took we use to present the Gospel story to children)to them. So she takes this one girl named Kylie aside and I took this girl named Ellie aside and I started to tell her the Gospel. It turns out she's never even heard of God. So I'm sitting there trying to explain and describe God (a very impossible task, really...) and she really understood well. And the light that switched on in her face when I told her that He loved her made me want to cry. So then I talked about Sin. I explained what it was, defined it. Then I explained that all have sinned, meaning everybody. And meaning her. I saw her get uneasy and troubled. But then I told her about the solution to this horrible problem, Sin. I told her all about Jesus and what he did for everybody, and what she can do to be saved. I asked her if she wanted to do that. She said "Yeah!" like it was the most obvious question on the planet, and nodded enthusiastically. So she prayed fervently and asked God to forgive her of her sin and save her. And she thanked him for Jesus' sacrifice and said she loved him, which I thought was sweet. Little girls' minds work that way. God loves me? I should love him back. Why aren't average Christians like that about God? We talk about God's love like it's ordinary, everyday stuff. Like God is ordinary, everyday stuff. Well the more I've found myself trying to describe God to children, the more in awe of Him I've become. He's indescribable, amazing. And the more I share of Him to children, the more I fall in love with Him. And that's part of what happened on Monday. Serious WOW moment for me. And there's more awesome stories to come, (things got even more amazing on Tuesday... *happiness*) Anyways, I must leave you, I have to go teach the last day of Clubs for this week. And I do realize that this blog post isn't the longest ever....I was hoping to have more time. I love you people. God bless y'all. 

-Esther <3