Musical Monday

I heard this awesome song on WRBS...so challenging!

Give It All Away
By Aaron Schust

Search my heart, search my mind, search my soul
Make me clean, make me new, make me whole.

Refrain: All of my plans, all of my dreams, I lay them down before Your feet.
All of my time, all that was mine, I now submit to Your design,
'Cause You are the one who can make my life complete,
You are the one who can give light to my feet,
You are the one and only one who dared to give it all away for me.

You are my strength, You are my God, you are my King.
You make me laugh, You make me dance, You make me sing.

Refrain

Everything inside, everything outside, I give it all away
You never change, but You rearrange my heart more everyday.

Refrain

This is so true! He really does rearrange my heart every day...believe me, he REARRANGES!!! :-)

SEEK HIS FACE WITH ME!

LOVE~BRIANNA

Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful for the Holy Spirit...and for God's power! Last night at church our pastor spoke about "being transformed by the renewing of our mind" (Romans 12:1-2). Renewing our mind means to change the way we think from worldly thinking to spiritual thinking. He explained that the verb "being transformed" means to "allow yourself to be transformed." We don't have to do anything special to transform our minds...it's not about us! All we have to do is listen to the Holy Spirit...it's about choosing to let the Holy Spirit control our lives and minds! Thank You God that I don't have to change in my own power!

SEEK HIS FACE WITH ME!

LOVE~BRIANNA

A Very Late Musical Monday...

I know it's a little late to be posting, but our Internet has been down half the day and I've been doing school work the rest of the day! So here's Musical Monday...a little late! I've been reading through the Psalms lately, and a section of Psalm 119 really challenged me. Since Psalms are really songs, I decided to write about this particular Psalm for Musical Monday. I'm quoting from my Mom's Amplified Bible; I think it's a pretty cool translation!

Psalm 119:9-16
by King David
How shall a young man cleanse his way?
By taking heed and keeping watch [on himself] according to Your word

[conforming his life to it].
With my whole heart have I sought You,
inquiring for and of You and yearning for You;
O let me not wander or step aside
[either in ignorance or willfully]
from Your commandments.
Your word have I laid up in my heart,
that I might not sin against You.
Blessed are You, O Lord;
teach me Your statutes.
With my lips have I declared and recounted
all the ordinances of Your mouth.
I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies
as much as in all riches.
I will meditate on Your precepts
and have respect to Your ways
[the paths of life marked out by Your law].

This is so challenging to me. As I get closer and closer to starting college, and as I see more and more of how absolutely WACKY this world is, I'm starting to grow more and more aware of the need to stay CLOSE to God. I've got to "meditate on" His precepts and "have respect to" His ways. I thought it was interesting that David says that he's "rejoiced in the way of [His] testimonies as much as in all riches." That means I need to cherish His commands, just like I would my most prized possession! Wow! Thank You God for giving me your Word to guide me, and PLEASE help me to stay close to You!

SEEK HIS FACE WITH ME!
LOVE~BRIANNA

Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful for...

EVERYTHING THAT

I DON'T DESERVE...

which is EVERYTHING!

Here are just a few of those blessings:

~Forgiveness of sin,

~A guaranteed eternity with Christ

~A God who hears ALL of my prayers,

~Wonderful Christian parents

~A great brother with a sense of humor,

~A very cute kitty named Leo,

~A safe home in a free country,

~A solid education,

~A huge family of Christian brothers and sisters,

~God's Word...in my language,

~A great piano teacher,

~A wonderful English teacher,

~A great Christian college to attend next year,

SEEK HIS FACE WITH ME!
LOVE~BRIANNA

Musical Monday

On Mondays, I will share the lyrics of a song that I like.
Yesterday at church, we sang this hymn:

The Longer I Serve Him
by William J. Gaither

Verse 1: Since I started for the Kingdom,
Since my life He controls,
Since I gave my heart to Jesus,
The longer I serve Him,
the sweeter He grows.
Verse 2: Every need He is supplying;
Plenteous grace He bestows.
Every day my way gets brighter;
The longer I serve Him,
the sweeter He grows.
Refrain: The longer I serve Him, the sweeter He grows.
The more that I love Him, more love He bestows.
Each day is like heaven, my heart overflows.
The longer I serve Him, the sweeter He grows.

This hymn encourages me to keep serving God. I won't have a trouble free life just because I'm a Christian; the words of this hymn are only true if I serve Him!

SEEK HIS FACE WITH ME!
LOVE~BRIANNA

THANKFUL THURSDAY

As you saw in my first post,
I've been blessed with a wonderful mom.
And as you saw in my last post,
I also have a wonderful dad who served in N.O. last month!
I'm also blessed with a wonderful church.


I am so grateful to God that He brought us to our church 13+ years ago!The elders have sought, with God's help, to model our church after the New Testament church. Our Pastor has been serving there for about 37 years, and I appreciate him SO MUCH! He is one of the most humble and wise people I know. He teaches straight from God's Word...no personal opinions. And when gone to for council or advice, he points you straight to the Bible. My church also seeks to encourage family worship, and there are many kids (0-18yrs) in the service every week. As I've gotten older, I've really come to respect and cherish my church and our Pastor, as well as the fellowship at the church. We're known as the congregation that stays for a long time after the service to TALK, TALK, and TALK some more! :-) I love that! It's also neat because we have a wide variety of people in the congregation, and I've noticed that when I step into a group of girls to talk, we can all fellowship and enjoy each other, simply because we are sisters in Christ! Isn't it awesome that the body of Christ as a whole has that one common factor that draws all believers together?!?

Thank you, Lord, for my church...
and thank for Pr. Gerry
and all of the other Bible-teaching, godly pastors out there!

SEEK HIS FACE WITH ME!
LOVE~BRIANNA

My Dad's Trip to New Orleans

This past month, my Dad led a group of college students on a trip to New Orleans. They were helping EFCA Relief Services in the Katrina clean-up project. Below are some pics from his trip.

Dad got to try his first crawfish!! Here, he is sucking the juice out of the crawfish's head...yummm!!

This is one of the HUNDREDS of abandoned/condemned houses.

If you look toward the back of this house's driveway, you'll see a plane! It randomly floated into this person's back yard, and has been sitting there for two and a half years!!

Condemned low-income housing projects...

One of the team's projects was to remove a roof that had collapsed onto a neighboring house during the flood.

This is part of the team and the family whose house they worked on during the week. This family's house had been blown off of its foundation during Katrina.

Cleaning up after a hard day's work.

The team slept at Trinity Church in Covington, LA.

Another destroyed home.

Dad putting siding on a house...

Another condemned house that the team had to clear out.

The Mississippi River


Beignet pastry from the Cafe Du Monde.

Trinity Church is known as "the church of the stained carpet," because literally hundreds of people from all over the country stay at the facility every week. These people work in teams to help the people effected by Katrina. There is a lot of work left to do...for more info on Trinity and on the Katrina project, check out the links above.

SEEK HIS FACE WITH ME!
LOVE~BRIANNA

HYPERVENTILATION!!!

I don't normally respond to stress very well. When something challenging comes up, I usually... kind of...sort of...definitely...hyperventilate! Mom normally tells me, "Brianna, think truth. Is this really a big deal?" I know she's right, but I usually just go right on stressing for a while.

OK, so last night, Mom and I were working on my blog. We were looking at templates and trying to find one that would match my header. Well, we decided to experiment, and we downloaded a template that didn't really match...so I started stressing! We also deleted stuff from the sidebar by accident, so I was stressing out about that, too. Then in the middle of all this, our Internet went down, so we couldn't change anything, and so I REALLY stressed out...did I mention I was stressed??? :-)

Well, then I started thinking, "OK, Brianna...this IS NOT WORTH LOSING A NIGHT'S SLEEP OVER...you need to start listening to your mom and thinking truth! What's the truth? Well, I know I'll be able to fix this tomorrow, and I also know that in 20 years, when I'm fondly reminiscing about my first blog, I probably won't remember that time that I had a funny looking template for a few hours. And obviously, God has some reason for all this happening. Maybe He's trying to teach me how to respond to stress." Well, it took me a while, but I did finally calm down, and I slept VERY WELL!! :-)

Philippians 4:8 says, "Finally, brothers, whatever is TRUE, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things."

This is something I'll be working on for a long time...until I die!!! THANK YOU LORD (and MOM!) for your patience!!

SEEK HIS FACE WITH ME!
LOVE~BRIANNA

Thankful Thursday

Soooo....this is my first post!! YAY!!

Today I want to thank God for my mom. She helped me set up this entire blog last night (she's good at it too!). She is such an INCREDIBLE mom, and I appreciate her so much!

One of the many things I appreciate about Mom is that she always strives to be an encouragement to her family (and she succeeds!). Whether she's making special chocolate chip-pecan pancakes for dinner, talking (and listening) to me as I bring up my frustrations, or taking my brother and me shopping for spring clothes, she's a constant example to me of how a godly mom should act.

I also appreciate Mom because she has a servant's heart for others. My dad works at Christian college, and a lot of college-age girls come to mom to talk about ALL KINDS of stuff!! And mom ALWAYS LISTENS!!! Even if someone stops by to talk just when Mom's about to do something else, she stops and serves. She reminds me of Jesus in Matt. 4:13-14. Jesus really needed to be ALONE, and yet, when He saw all those people who were in need, He gave up his much needed alone-time, and served! Mom practices that kind of serving regularly, and I'm very thankful for her example. Thanks Mom!!

SEEK HIS FACE WITH ME!!
LOVE~BRIANNA