Yesterday I turned 21 and would like to just thank all of you for your wonderfully kind birthday wishes! I truly do not deserve to hear such gracious words and am very grateful for the friends I am surrounded by. I am so thankful for the life that I have and am very aware of the privileges I face. When I turned 20 I had set goals and am very thankful that I achieved them... after looking back at the past year I really do think that it has been the best one yet. I am looking forward to finding out what my 21st year has in store. Praise be to our Heavenly Father for keeping me safe and for sending me trials and temptations that I could learn through and become more like Him. Soli Deo Gloria.
Last Sunday's youth sermon was truly convicting. And not just a "yeah, that was important" type of convicting, but really a "wow, I need to change my whole perspective and really hit the root issue here, truly repent and ask God to change my heart in this regard" type of convicting. The whole time I felt as though the sermon had been specially crafted for me- to really get me to analyze my own heart and realize how little I love the people that are truly my brothers and sisters. By nature I love to critique everything- I always thought it would be awesome to have a career where I get to criticize companies or stores and tell them what they are doing wrong. Unfortunately my sinful nature brings this into the way I deal with people. As I was listening to the sermon I realized that judging people was just my default setting. In my own head, to myself, I always concealed this as honest assessment or analyzing- instead of downright, sinful judging. When I would be c