Christ's strength will always intercede.

As I sit here pondering what to blog on becasue I mean it has been almost a week eh so I feel the longing to blog- a million thoughts run rampant through my mind.
This week has been pretty good.  Office stuff-hung out individually with a few wonderful ladies from C!C; said my first good-bye.  J went to Atlanta with Zach for the weekend to preach at Eagles Landing and had some MEGA important stuff stolen-that sucked obviously.  Right now it's Carrie and I and the circus crew-you can imagine the craziness in the household during the day and the peace that occurs when they all fall asleep.

I went to the park on Tuesday and honestly Satan was totally attacking me giving me the thoughts to make me anxious, and not want to go and question myself-.  So I walk up and turns out there was this random camp gong on where kids were running around.  So the Lord took captive every thought I was experiencing and let me have His strength to go up and talk to these kids.  I ended up staying a few hours with all of them; painting faces, eating lunch, and just socializing.  It was a beautiful picture of Christ interceding on my behalf.

My 'bus' time has been the most intentional time of prayer ever.  Each time I bus (which is a few times a day) I take out my journal and write a page of how my day is and just praise and talk to the Lord-it has been revolutionizing and I hope to be able to implement that philosophy back in USA.

One afternoon Caleb and Lilly were in my room and so I pulled out my computer again to take some more pics and they went CRAZY-we had SO much fun and I am so thankful to have them!

Lilly and I have a thing with dandelions-presh.

Caleb and I were pointing at Lilly becasue it was her birthday-TWO :)

My heart has gone missing; it's in the depths of these children.

Everything is about to begin counting down here.  Last time with the kids in church, last !group, last meeting with Amy, last dance party; you get the picture.  So I need prayer for perseverence; I yearn to BE here until August 6 at 730, and then I will need to BE in Mississippi August 6 at 12.  So pray that the Lord will keep my heart here til then and then move it-that is going to be the hard part for sure.  But being up here the Lord has done some pretty awesome stuff within my heart so I know He can do it and He will provide.  But prayers for my last week to not be a waste but the final outpouring of my soul and for it to be filled properly.

My 'soul spill' of this place will come next blog-if I do it now then the reality that I have to leave MIGHT hit-and I am not ready for that ;)

Living life saturated in the culture of C!C and Ottawa.

Well this week in the office was INCREDIBLY productive-partly because I was bymy self and partly because I had a lot of physical outcomes from the week.  I love structured things to do so I particularly enjoyed this week.  Examples:  I varnished a train, am organizing the storage box, made a book list of every book C! station has, and am getting ready for August 5th.  Good week.

J and Carrie were deeply involved with a group of 'World Changers' so J slept at the school and Carrie trekked over each morning.  So Carries mama-'MeMe' came up for 2 wonderful weeks.  So I got to spend a lot of time with her and it was so wonderful-it was so sad to see her leave becasue I totally enjoyed her company and getting to know a wiser sister/mama in Christ!

I got to help lead worship with the band guys this Sunday-which was simply amazing.  I absolutely love singing in church and just being a vessel of the Lord for His glory.  It was the coolest experience ever to lead with my fellow brothers in Christ and sing Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)-that song will definitely bring up my wonderful memories of C!C.

Friday night some girls and I went downtown and saw the light show on  parliment-it was WELL worth staying out til midnight! :)  (Michelle-this picture was put on for YOU so you could see a pic!)

The sermon was literally as if God took Jason-let him know the deepest parts of my heart- and spoke.  However Jason was simply just preaching like every other Sunday-but the Lord knew that I needed to hear what J had to say and it was spectacularly convicting.  He preached on the parable of the good samaritian-however I have never heard it preached from this angle and I think I enjoyed it most like this.  His points were: feeling justified, Jesus and _______, and gorge on grace.
1-We try to justify things to God to avoid guilt; mainly things we 'deserve' or certain sins that we try to hold to a higher standard.  In simple:  "Lord I know I'm supossed to _______ but I _______."  One other good subpoint-If we know something it'll affect us, but if we believe it-it'll change us.
Belief is the extension of knowledge, which leads to true justification.  Just as if I had never sinned.  That is something that will never get old I think-I can't fathom this state of being!
2-Jesus & _________.  Insert in the blank what makes you feel 'justified' or what you need to do or not do to feel justified-insinuating works.
we can not move away from our position with Jesus.  It's Jesus PERIOD-not Jesus and.
3-grace-undeserved kindness.
be prepared to give radically because He loves us radically.
I just wanted to share a few of my sermons notes because I loved it so much.

I pray one day to be a part of a church as wonderfully devoted to the Lord as Celebration.  SUCH a close knit group of believers who come together to enjoy fellowship with one another and give praise to Him.  My standard for church and small group has increased leaps and bounds for sure.  The amount of realism in their lives is-unreal!

I was going to write some sappy thing about how my time here is ending-but I still have 2 full weeks so I decided to wait a week for that one-so tune in next blog (and probably the next 5!) for that!

WICKED has occured oh yea and life as an intern.

I am in my bedroom contemplating the fact I just saw my life ambition since I can remember-WICKED on broadway.  So many emotions at one time I can hardly contain myself.

So this is me and the stage set up behind me-SUPER excited to be there!

This is the view from my seat-NO zoom :) Worth each penny for sure!

I knew this moment would come-it means my time in Ottawa has to end eventually-which is sad.  But this moment I have so long antisipated just happened and it was so wonderful.
My expectations of it musically, visually, and theatrically were sufficiently fulfilled.  I loved EACH moment and could hardly believe I was watching what I have for so long listened to not truly understanding the meaning of each song-I now comprehend; it makes it all the more better.
I sat next to this mom and it was her seventh time and still cried multiple times!  So safe to say she was excited to sit next to me-an eager first timer-so we just cried together over how awesome the whole experience was.  I didn't think I would get emotional but hey-things happen at Shiz University!

I LOVE the story line and all the relationships-it makes it so meaningful and special.  My favorite scene was 'One Short Day' and 'Defying Gravity'-they both stuck out to me.  The songs that now mean much more to me are 'As Long As Your Mine' and 'For Good'.

WARNING:  IF NOT INTO MUSICAL CRITIQUES SKIP THIS PART:
This Elfaba did an AWESOME job at being..Elfaba and embodying the character and Glida wasn't exacltly what I expected but she was very cute and had an incredible voice.  I think Elfaba meshed better with Fiero than Glinda did-their voices were like butter!  I liked Elfaba and Glinda separate-however together-though they had their moments sometimes I felt it wasn't 'exaclty' on.  Baq was awkwadly funny at the dancing!  The Wizard's voice was good and all-but I felt he more talked than sung-which I guess is ok.  Elfaba and Glinda were awesome at going with the main voice line but changing a few things to really own it for themselves which was nice to see that they knew what they thrived at better (ie: trills, vibrato).  I really loved Nessa's voice-she stuck out to me and I could see her thriving at being Glinda-maybe just getting more of the 'belt' voice-but she has  the range and 'type' of voice to really own at it.  The mass choir people were AWESOME-I could tell how much they worked and it paid off-they synced together like a family which is important for a choir.

Ok WICKED rant over-that is NOT all I have done since I last blogged-it's been a week!
It was a normal week at the office-nothing to spectacular.  I organized a LOT of farmer's market stuff and it feels REALLY nice to be able to see my work and know it was something productive.  Other than that normal intern stuff of work and random things of awesomeness!

I am continuing to get close to a few key people here-which though I am SO glad to have such wonderful people-I am really sad because I know I don't live here and won't be back for at least a year-wierd eh.  But Caitlin had a really cool point.  She said that though she has brothers and sisters all over the world that who knows when will be the next time-if ever we meet up.  One day we will all be in Heaven together so it's not good-bye; it's see ya later!  That is reassuring for sure.

I love skyping with my besties back in the States to just see how life is going-it makes me excited for them and excited to know that my other life not in Canada is still there-though I LOVE this one.  It is fun to think and remember my friends I've known longer than 5 weeks!

Ok it's 1am here and I have yet to stay up this late except for Montreal-so good night :)

Beautiful Things

                                                          Hello blog world!
            So this came RIGHT after the C!C weekly but that wasn't my week-so here it is! :)

Well it is back to a 'normal' week for this week in office world. 

Monday's Sabbath was pure perfection.  I just got to rest in the beauty of God-awesome.

I get to see Wicked in 5 days-ONE HAND; and I am fulfilling my bucket list slowly which is coolio!

Lilly and Caleb are continuing to grow closer to me-so here are a few pics that we took together!

I am glad we are so close but everytime I ponder the fact I really don't live here makes me just want to cry and 'loose' my passport ;) AND becasue Carrie is THE bestest cook-EVER. Amen.

Caleb and I enjoyed the 'burst' button making 3 pictures one after another fast-so that was my favorite picture that occured from them all.  Totally describes us.

Lilly, Caleb, and I took a few fun ones-so here is the chaos that is my life :)

I finally realized what I love most about Ottawa.  Though I love my school, we as the 'bible belt' (including myself) are mega judgemental on people.  So in case you didn't know-I have a very unique personality of loud and crazy of which people either love or hate; though I am confident in who God made me I am used to people either accepting it or not.  So I was prepared for that here-and quite the contrary happened.  No one here has tried to change my personality at the core-it's super refreshing to see God's love at work with no strings attached.  I found a new word for C!C: loving.

So far my 'words' have been: genuine, transparent, intimate, and now loving!

Something you can pray for.  I feel that being here as a 'summer missionary' I feel the expectation to 'do' this and 'not do' this and in case you didn't know-I screw up a lot.  So thus I am epically failing at this so-called 'list'.  So I feel Satan directly attacking me at my weakest point telling me that I am failing at being a 'summer missionary'.  However I KNOW my assurance is in Christ and that He who began a good work in me will finish it; however in the moment of spiritual warfare I often forget.  So pray that I be faithful to remembering the word that I have hidden in my heart.

C!C weekly

So the Celebration Church sends out a mass email weekly and I got to be the writer for it this week! :) I wanted to share it so here it is:

Hey y'all!

This is Meg here -- I have probably met most of you, so you probably know that I am now half way done with my time here in Ottawa.   I can hardly believe it! So, with some time under my belt, I've been often asked what I am learning, what are people like here, how's the food/weather ...  every question in the book. I often want to be able to give the perfect answer of what God is teaching me; however, contrary to my expectations of coming here, there is more of a lack of what He's "teaching" me. Instead I am getting to EXPERIENCE everything He wants me to learn, thus not giving me so many words but rather knowledge: resting, patience, freedom, transparency, Godly households, and parenting to name specifically some of them.

The one I want to elaborate on is rest, namely taking a Sabbath. So practically speaking how do you take a Sabbath? There is so much to do: school, work, kids, shopping, laundry, cleaning; the list continues. I can honestly say before coming here, in the 5 wonderful years of knowing Christ I have never taken a day to just rest; cease from normal life to reflect on Him. I am going to pick on the Byers for a moment. Since I coming to live with them, each Monday they call their Sabbath 'family day'. This is where we spend time together not working, or doing errands; just resting or spending time together as a family and spending extra time meditating on the Lord (or having dance parties to His name!). This concept was totally new to me and to be honest I had not a clue what to do with it myself! Now when I go back to school this will look drastically different (though the dance parties WILL happen in my dorm) because obviously some things you genuinely can't not do. However, we students can strive to have school work completed for Monday by Saturday, and laundry can be done during the week, and household obligations Friday night instead of Sunday afternoon. There are small things we just have to intentionally put on another day so that one day a week we can do what the Lord commands us to do . . . and rest.

"For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."
Exodus 20:11

If you already do this - then that is awesome! However I know personally this is something that is not as prevalent in society, even among Christians. So I encourage you to evaluate your lifestyle and just try a Sabbath once . . . fully. Once you genuinely do it, you will be encouraged to do it again and again!

So pick a day. Tell the family. And get to resting!

Your Mississippian sister in Christ,

Meg

Car Dieu est ta grand.

Eagles Landing came and left.  It feels like they JUST got here.  However the Lord destinted them to come for one week to serve, pour out, and be poured into.  We did crafts, games, and ultimately lived Christ for about a week in the Brantwood park.  Each day was a different craft so we got to personally know quite a few kids, mom, and nannys.  So we got to share Christ with quite a few people through doors that only the Lord could have provided.
The girls were simply awesome, and we all decided I am coming up there for Labor Day!!
And pictures will be on facebook soon from Brittany so I will steal some of them! :D

I am so tired from the week but so on fire for what I know the Lord has, is, and will do in Ottawa.  We went to the CNBC (southern baptist conference for Canada) conference and a guy there related it like dominos.  The dominos are in line, now it is up to God through us to hit the line and to let them go!  Also at that conference since it was is in Qubec everything is French-literally.  So we are at worship and everything is English/French.  So we sang quite a few worship songs and it was simply amazing to go from English to French and to know that though I didn't know directly what each word was-I knew that it was priase to God.  Then the songs I could do in French was an awesome experience to get to lift my hands in praise to Him in the language I absolutely love.  It definitely was a defining moment here so far and I am so glad we all treked over there for the night.

I can hardly believe that my time is half way up.  I start thinking about leaving and honestly just get very saddened because I know there is so much more for me to learn, do, and grow here.  And I just freaking LOVE every day in the beautiful, wonderful city.  I had to fill out a few summer mission forms of how my time here is each I have had to answer what is 'challenging' and to be honest I don't have any things that are terrible.  The only 'challening' part honestly is how drastically different my living situation is (for the better!); so I just talked about how it is challenging to live with a family you don't know for 2 months at first but it definitely is the best experience I could ask for.
I am getting started on my deepened relationships and I can hardly wait to see where they go.  I really hope to journey back up here sometime  and see everyone again.  Espically my family up here. As  I said I really feel a part of 'them' and their household.  I have learned what a godly family and parenting should look like and I have decided they should write a book ;)  Though I have been here for some very tense moments-this is what I need to see-to know how under crazy kid pressure how to deal with it in a godly way.  I seriously have loved each day in this house hold!

Oh-and ELEVEN days until my life dream comes true and I see WICKED on broadway!
I am glad everyone here knows me and how excited I get because there is NO way I would hold back how much this moment will mean to me!

Eagles Landing meets C!C meets Gulfport, MS

I could not believe my eyes when I saw it has almost been a week since my last blog.  Time here really does fly!This week we have been hard at work in the office getting ready for a mission team to get here-which arrived Friday afternoon.  They are from Eagles Landing in McDonnah, GA.  They are the 'partner' church with C!C.  So they have 13 college kids here serving for the week.

left to right:  Brittany, Sonja, Meg, Carson, Ashley, Leda

This is the whole group from Eagles Landing plus some C!C people.

So yea.  They got here Friday and Saturday we went to the farmers market and just did what I normally do except with 13 people.  Then today we had a grill-out at Springhurst park and went downtown for Canada Day!  The ladies on the trip and some quality people.  We are sharing life as if we have known each other for months and I met them TWO days ago-crazy.  God is so good.  We are hoping I can go visit them during my labor day break in GA :)

I can hardly believe 5 years ago I accepted Christ.  The best and hardest 5 years of life and I could not have asked for anything better.  Today I celebrated Canada Day and also being a Christ follower.  What a perfect way to do so than socializing with the body of Christ eh?

God is really convicting my heart to find true freedom in Him.  So I am anxious to see what all that involves and also terrifed becasue I know that means transparency not with my best friend but someone 'outside' that circle.  However I know that God yearns for the chains of sin to be taken off and to soar with Him in freedom.  Listen to this song.  It is so convicting because I want to be able to genuinely have this song be true of my life.

Liberty by Shane and Shane

I also finished reading 'Radical' by David Platt and the main point I gained was the different between 'giving' and 'sacrificing' to the Lord.  I mean I have a compassion child and that is truly giving to the Lord.  However I can withstand $45 dollars a month.  So I don't feel it is sacrifice.  It needs to hurt a little-I need to TRUST that God will provide and not trust in my own being.  So I am trying to find where that fits in once I get back to school.  How can I sacrifice my life to the cause of Christ and not stop at just 'giving' to Him?  I know He will show me and that is what terrifies me.  Because I know I am going to have to trust Him more.  But I genuinely know that He will do what is best for my life in reference to Him.

I can't wait to blog next about all the awesome stuff the Lord does through Eagles Landing crew at the park this week. 

Pray for boldness.