Brussels: T-2 days!

Hello my questies,

I am departing for my month abroad in Brussels on Friday. Please pray for me that I will be a light to the girls I am living with, to the children in the school I am teaching in, and to the people in Belgium and everywhere I end up traveling. Pray that I continue to follow Christ's call for my life and shine like a star in the universe by His light. Pray for safety as well.

I think of you guys every day. Not a day goes by where I don't think of Quest with such fondness, memories, and thankfulness. I pray that God is rocking your worlds right now. It's not promised to be an easy road as Christ follower, but the reward is far greater. Read Psalm 73:23-26. I found it the other night and it made me cry, it is so beautiful.

While I'm gone I will have a blog, if you're interested in reading: www.whitleyinbrussels.blogspot.com

Truth

God does not choose the equiped, He equips the chosen.

Hiatus

Hello Quest,

My many apologies for not being on this for quite some time. I got discouraged towards the end of last semester because I was frequently reading my own posts and I didn't want to do that, but that was a pitiful reason to stop posting! It doesn't matter how many people are reading our posts or if anyone does...it's cool because God is reading them and knowing them before we even type them, which is who we are aiming to glorify anyway.

I also have been without computer for over a month now and just got my laptop back up and running, score!!

So, in other words, I'm back and am excited to continue this journey with you.

I challenge you all to spend at least 5 minutes per day being still before God. just be still. no thinking, no typing, no texting, no phone/internet/facebook/twitter, no music, no tv, no driving, no eating, NOTHING. sit and be completely still. and if you start praying in your head, stop...and just keep repeating, "Be still and know that You are God." I think it is so important for all of us in the midst of our busy lives and schedules to know to be still before God and to never compromise our time with Him. do you think He enjoys it when we miss a single day without spending intimate time with Him? i don't think so.

i love you all...

Prayer Requests

If anyone is still reading this, is there anything you'd like me to pray for?
Comment and let me know! (:

God bless!
-Haley

imperishable beauty and waiting for the good to win

I know most of you aren't really checking this anymore, and that's okay, but I guess I'll just keep posting anyway because it really helps me get the most out of each passage I read. And yea, it's pretty late right now to be posting, but I can't sleep! Here are a few things about 1 Peter 3 that really stuck out to me...

1 Peter 3:3-4 ~ "Your adornment should not be an external one: braiding the hair, wearing gold jewelry, or dressing in fine clothes, but rather the hidden character of the heart, expressed in the imperishable beauty of a gentle and calm disposition, which is precious in the sight of God."...And God's "sight" is definitely the only sight/judgement that matters. I think girls in particular should really listen to these few verses. It seems like everyone gets too wrapped up in things that don't matter in this world and, for some reason, they think that they have to be perfect on the outside for everyone to like them or accept them. Try not to focus on those kind of qualities too much. (: And don't look for those kind of qualities in other people. Love them for whom they are on the inside.

1 Peter 3:17 ~ "For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that be the will of God, than for doing evil." It's crazy how much this verse applies to my life right now (especially tonight). It's such a powerful verse, though. I guess it's basically saying that good always wins. And here's a quote I read this morning that is really connected with this verse..."Like an old gold-panning prospector, you must resign yourself to digging up a lot of sand from which you will later patiently wash out a few minute particles of gold ore." - Dorothy Bryant. Kind of a cheesy comparison, but it's really true. We might have to keep digging through all of that sand for some time before we find the gold, just as we might have to wait a while for the good to overcome the bad, but in the end, it's always going to be worth it. Sometimes it may seem like the "bad person" (I don't know how else to say it...) is winning, BUT just wait a while, keep on fighting for what you know in your heart is right, and you'll most definitely find that good really does win - - ALWAYS. That's something my parents have told me ever since I was little, and I'm never going to forget it!

You're in my prayers,
Haley

1 Peter 1

Hey Quest, I hope everyone had a great Christmas!

So here are some pretty cool things from 1 Peter 1:

1 Peter 1:6-7 ~ "In this you rejoice, although now for a little while you may have to suffer through various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that is perishable even though tested by fire, may prove to be for praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." I love these verses so much because they are so encouraging and uplifting. The truth is, we're ALL going to go through struggle after struggle after struggle in our lives. What really matters is how we handle them, how we react to these struggles. They are really God's ways of testing ("the genuineness of") our faith. And they almost always make us and our faith even stronger...so something good can definitely come out of something bad. "Every set back in life is a chance to rise up even stronger."

Here's part of a poem that goes along with/has the same message as 1 Peter 1:6-7. It's called "Heavy" by Mary Oliver...

That time
I thought I could not
go any closer to grief
without dying

I went closer,
and I did not die.
Surely God
had His hand in this,

....................

Then said my friend Daniel
(brave even among lions),
"It's not the weight you carry

but how you carry it-
books, bricks, grief-
it's all in the way
you embrace it, balance it, carry it

when you cannot, and would not,
put it down."
So I went practicing,
Have you noticed?

Have you heard
the laughter
that comes, now and again,
out of my startled mouth?...


1 Peter 1:22 ~ "Since you have purified yourselves by obedience to the truth for sincere mutual love, love one another intensely from a [pure] heart." This is the verse that Whitley put on my award for "sincere spirit" at camp. Always remeber the importance of sincerely and genuinely loving one another. "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." ~ Plato

Hopefully more people will start reading/posting on the blog again... :/
And are there any prayer requests out there?

God bless! And happy 2010. (:
-Haley