God is enough..

I don´t know how many times I said that without meaning it. I mean, of course I wanted it to be true but in my heart there was always something left what I knew doesn´t belong fully to the Lord. But you know what, he ripped my pants off.. he pulled the rug out from under so :-)
Which means I feel like NOTHING is left right now, I couldn´t give it - so he took it. No, he didn´t steal it, but he took my prayers serious and my prayer was and is, that I would be abel to surrender everything and belong fully to him. Here we go..

Sometimes I feel like I would break in two but as I get it more and more that he is all I need and he knows what I need, and what I don´t have I don´t need, I feel sooo free.
I don´t have all the things I think - and still think - would be great to have, and not all my relationships are easy going and all right, and not all my finances are clear yet.. but I know it´s gonna be all right and for sure I know- he is what I really need; he is the one who satisfies my heart; he is the one who makes me "happy" :-) And I love to be happy, and right now I am happy with how it is right now! I am sooo greatful for that because I know that this is a gift too!

A great time..

Time is just running.. I don´t know how many times I say that, but it is still true. Now my Birthday is already over; which means- summer is coming! I am so ready for the summer and just having sun and fun! :-)
I am already 26; yes, I am getting old, but I am fine with it.. because I have goals in my life (Annie you know what I am saying...) and I know with God´s help that almost some of those goals, which I almost wrote down; will come true and some will not and maybe it is really important to have goals and maybe not..

How ever I just wanted to show you some pictures of the past few days with my wonderful new camera. My first goal which I especially write down for you.. I had a goal- to get a new camere for christmas- and I got one for my Birthday; we talked about goals, we never said anything about the timing! :-)

And I wanted to say thank you for all those wonderful friends.. it is so good to have them, they are a realy blessing!!
Finaly here they come.. enjoy!

I tried to bake a cake for my little

"Kaffeetrinken"; but some how
this is how it turned out.
just like cookies without
being tasty at all; well...

I think I really should be

thankful that I have friends
with some better baking skills than me!!

Of course I got some presents; but somehow
it seemed like they wanted to run
away from me...

mmmhhh.. this was me after this day..
it is nice to have Birthday, but is also good,
if it is over after a day! But thank you friends for
all your nice gifts and wishes!
Love you

WONDERFUL

Not just the sun is wonderful today; God is amazingly wonderful today as well. I am one more blown away from his goodness.. how he made everything so beautiful and if the sun is out everything is like twice as beutiful as it already is.. but.. even if I am not beutiful like a new born flower; God still loves me- he does. And he will not stop; not now and not tomrrow; never.

Did you know, even if everything is just hard and weird and you wished you just could move one.. that God is there. That he is with you in your situation and he is waiting till you surrender everything; and just trust him that he will handle it.

Oh my; today in class I got just reminded that God is the Lord of hosts.. HE is strong and mighty and he can do everything.. and you know what.. I am, you are is kid!! Wouldn´t your earthly father do everything for you if he has the possibility? mmhh... maybe not but anyways, your heavenly father would. EVEN if you will not get everything to the time you want it or in the way YOU thought it would be good for you.. but he takes care of you. He even cares for every little Spring flower on the field and the singing birds in the tree; so he will not, no, never ever forget you or me!! He promised and the only thing we have to do is to trus.

So, my note for today is; JUST TRUST YOUR MIGHTY GOD!!!!

Love

I looked up different definitions of love and one of them said that:

Love is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection and attachment. The word love can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from general pleasure to intense interpersonal attraction.
As an abstract concept, love usually refers to a deep, indescribable feeling of tenderly caring for another person.
It´s a especially, devoted attachment
tender or passionate;
to take delight or pleasure in
to have a strong liking or desire of or interest in
to be pleased with
to like

I thought about what love means to me; just in general or what I connect with it- and in my mind came words, as some of you already mentioned;
faithfulness,
trustfulness,
honesty,
stability,
obedience,
submission,
devotion,
being reachable,
humbly,
to be a sure,
closeness,
not depended on feelings,
not depended on what you get out of it…

But what I want to focus on is of course not just LOVE; I mean what did the world made out of love? Love doesn´t mean a whole lot for most of the people. They think it is a feeling and if you don´t feel it anymore; you don´t love anymore or if you don´t get what you expected from somebody why should you love than?
Maybe this is the way the world sees love or how most people act. But what actually should we think? What should love mean to us? What does the bible say about love? What does it mean when God says; he loves us? What does it mean if we love him?
God spoke a lot about that theme to me through a book “The divine romance” written by Gene Edwards. Which is all about a love relationship between men and God.
With how much love he created men; with how much love he tried to win their hearts back; with how much love he always brought them out of troubles and it was pure love that made Jesus die on the cross.
But what really touched me is the story about Moses times; how the Israelites were complaining in the wilderness and were they never been satisfied with anything.
Anyways; here the passage from the book:

God says to his people:
I did not require of you your wealth nor coins of gold.
What need have I of these?
I did not ask of you that you serve me.
Do I, the mighty One, need to be waited upon? Neither did I ask of you your worship nor your prayers
nor even your obedience.
He paused. Once more a long mournful groan rose from his breast.
I have asked but this of you, that you love me…

This really bound me over, it made me thinking.. why do I actually worship God? Why do I serve him? Why do I give? Why do I do all these things?
Because I think God deserved it, he is worthy?
Because I think I have to work of my depts?

There are about thousand good reasons but all are worthless before God if I don´t do them out of love. We can pretend it is love; of course; but HE is God. He knows your heart. Who do you think you could cheat on with that? Maybe people but God sees our hearts.
To love God is our purpose of being. God created men to have fellowship; to love not to get love back, because his love is perfect; but he wanted to be loved as well. Not by force but by free choice.
That´s why he says in his word over and over again:
You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. (Deu 6:5)
Jesus combined all commandments God had given to just those:
And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.' This [is] the first commandment. And the second, like [it, is] this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."(Mark 12, 30-31)
Through out the bible it is repeated over and over again that this is what God expects of us. Not to be a big server in his kingdom, not to give all we have, not to lift our hands higher than everybody else. The only thing he wants, he longs for, is your love.

And everything else will come out of this love. Because if you love you will love to spend time with that person;
if you love you will be able to give everything,
if you love you will lift your hand up and praise and worship,
if you love you will not stop loving because you didn´t get what you wanted because you will know that your God is taking care of and he will provide,
if you love you will serve with joy,
if you love your focus is not on you but on the “person” you love..

And we all were in love with some one at some time I am pretty sure everybody has such a experience; and you know how it is to just act and be in a way to please this person, to gets favor in his eyes, to make this person happy.. because if our counterpart laughs we are totally happy, if we see that person happy we are totally satisfied.

How much more if we love God? How much more will be satisfied if we really love God and give ourselves into him; try to please him…
Maybe you think how you really will be able to love him. Like I said it is not a feeling you should wait on. Love is a decision; love is more than a feeling.
You should get to know your God better; meditate on what he has done for you; who he is; what it means do be his child; what it means to spend all eternity with him. Study the whole history of men- how God created men and how he loved them, loved us all the time.
Because we are just able to love God because he loved us first!
We love Him because He first loved us.(1.John 4,19)

A new semester

The new year is already a whole month old and everything goes somehow in his old or rather new routine; which is not a bad thing by the way. It is getting normal to live in my own apartment again; and it is really good here. I am really happy with this nice apartment and with my roommate Tanja; it´s fun to live with her!

Bible collage life already started. I mean we as staff; which is sometimes still a funny thought; we´re already working since the Pastors conference. And I think we are a pretty good team! It is a real blessing to work with those people together and serve with them. I am excited about the upcoming semester and what God has planed for it. It is a relatively small semester; just 27 on campus students, more guys than girls. But I am sure it will be good. A lot of students are returning and so the long time till everybody knows everybody will be shorter (and I have a chance to memories all the names before two weeks till it ends!)

I will start my semester-life with working in the kitchen; food prep and at the church´s CoBa, being responsible for shopping and collage visitors. And I hope to get to know the students better and spend time with them and just be there for them. And I am sure God has a lot of challenges and growth in my tasks prepared.

I am glad that I am able to leave my valley behind; where I stuck in since new years. God is good and he kept going after me till he found me and could bring me back where I belong- close to him. I am not over everything by now but I want to meet my challenges and I know with God by my side it will be possible!

Christmas, Holidays and moving..

I don´t want to start to tell you how fast time is going, but time is going so fast :-)
The new year already began and christmas is over and my holidays are almost over as well! But everything was ok, I mean I had a good time at home with my family, christmas was wild but funny and I met some of my old friends which is always funny.

My new years eve was.. mmhh.. lets say I survived it. Actually I had a fun day with Julia, Arne & Aaron and we had a great tasty dinner and afterwards I went to work. My people there where tired and wanted to be by themselfs, but I had to stay up. Anyways; I was kind of sad and lonley on that night and somehow there is still of it in me. But I know life goes on and it will get better.. someday.

Now I try to preaper my "removal".. I really have a lot of stuff; I totally forgot that. But; God is good and he present me with vans and people who will help. And so I am totally confident that it will work out well. BUT nevertheless I am happy when it´s over!

Here some pictures from christmas and family-time..

Oh Christmas tree; oh christmas tree...
. ..and family dinner with turkey..mmmhh!!
Kyra and Lena! and me! :-)and don´t forget the dog; Willi!!