Mended

"Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words." So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do. Then the word of the Lord came to me:"O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the Lord. Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel."
-Jeremiah 18:2-6

Today, I bought a perfectly good pitcher at the store. 

I went home, and smashed it against the concrete.

 I have heard about smashing glass and how it is suppose to make you feel better. Well, it did. I sat there a few seconds taking it all in. and then I gathered the pieces, and made way to my room to put it back together. I got the hot glue gun, and started sifting through the pieces. I talked to God while I was working. as I was working, God showed me a lot. I begin to think of my past. Mistakes I made, thing's I have done. I realized the pitcher was my life, and every piece was part of a story that he had chosen to put together. I began to remember things I had forgotten. It took a while to finish, but it was time well spent.

Here you are Callie. You are mended. You are filled with My Spirit. and I am asking you to pour yourself out. 

The idea of my life as a broken pitcher is beautiful to me. but, it is also hard to look at. I wished I had been different. I wished I had always followed him the way I should have. I was mad at the cracks, and breaks, time spent wasted, and the holes where it should be smooth. But God, my almighty father, was telling me,

My dearest Callie. How do you think the world has seen me? If it wasn't for the cracks, the breaks, I couldn't seep out the way I do. I chose the pitcher,. I chose you, just as you are. 

I challenge you to do the same. find a vase, or pitcher, smash it, and then put it back together. Let Him tell you who you are, and let yourself be reminded of the grace that seals us all.

I know you have had seasons of life that are unmendable. I know I have. but despite the hurt and heartache, it is never too late for HIm to sculpt you into something beautiful. Allow the Lord to remind you that you aren't a mistake.

Allow god to remind you of His great love for you. His precious vessel.


In Christ,
Callie


Listening to: Let the Waters Rise By Mikeschair

2013>2012

To say that 2012 was a good year is a huge understatement! God has stretched me, grown me, and challenged me in so many ways, I don't know where to begin. I graduated high school, I went to brazil, I led groups at 2 different camps, i started college, and I have been part of a church plant. What a year it has been!

While all of this was huge, our church plant, DECIDEDchurch has been one if the biggest adventures yet! I started attending a bible study in January called DECIDED. I started out quiet, not sure what to think while being the youngest one there. I soon begin to realize God had placed me there for a reason. After a few months of seeing this group turn into a house church and move from an apartment, to a conference room, to a real church, I knew it was time for me to be involved. When it came time to volunteer, I knew I wanted the position as volunteer coordinator. I knew I could do it, but I hesitated because I was only 18. Who would give such a huge position to someone who was the youngest? But God reminded me not to let anyone look down on because I was young, but to set an example. So I applied, and was chosen. Over the next few months, I grew so much in my relationship with God, and honestly became more Intune with what he was calling me to do. I developed deep friendships I have never had before. I have a group of leaders who accept me as I am, and don't judge. I feel a peace about where I am. I know God has called me here. I am excited to see where God takes us in 2013. To see in a year how we went from a bible study to a church, going from 15 people to 50, there is no way you can say that God isn't in this. God was faithful then, and faithful he will continue to be. I am blessed to have been in the midst of Gods work this year. I pray I will continue to be in the years to come. I thank God for the people he has put in my life this year, the situations he has allowed me be in, and the freedom to worship him freely all the time. Lord, Prepare me for the unimaginable things you have planned for this coming year. The best is yet to come.

Able

This post is my attempt to share the amazing, speechless things the Lord is doing in my life right now.

ABLE. This word has been spoken to me more times in the past week than I think I have ever heard it in my life!

Able by NeedToBreathe- Carry round the secrets only heaven knows,Crawl into our darkened rooms where only victims go.Though I feel I'm strong enough to carry all this load, I'm not able on my own...

God is Able-Hillsong- Lifted up, He defeated the grave,Raised to life,Our God is able.In His name We overcome,For the Lord Our God is able

God is Great, God is Able

I am so thankful my God is Able! He can can carry what I am not able to carry, he will never leave us. He is faithful! Just. Almighty. Daddy. All-knowing. Abba Father. My savior. Redeemer. Friend.

God is overwhelming me with his Love, Mercy, and Grace. Right now, I would probably consider my emotional level to be at one of it's weakest points ever, Yet my God is able to provide the healing, support, love, and care I need.

My father is Able! I know he is with me, every step of the way. I know his love has lit the way. I know 100% that I am exactly where I am suppose to be right now. I have found a group of honest, authentic Christians who just want to love Jesus, and share that Overwhelmingly wonderful news with everyone they come in contact with! I am thankful that even in the midst of everything going on, God is putting people, churches, groups in my life and my relationship with him has never grown more, and for that, I am thankful!

I may not be able on my own, but I sure do serve a faithful God who is!

Until next time,

Callie




Listening to: God is Able by Hillsong

Keep Your Head Up

Reading through Psalms 3* this morning the verse that says that God is the lifter of our head made me think of a song on the read. Whenever I hear Andy Grammer's "Keep you Head Up" song it always helps put a little pep in my step. We all want to live carefree right? It seems that so many things keep us from that. But here's a secret, we can have peace throughout everything we do. It's not just the times when we are fishing, or laying on a beach, or on a run that we can be at peace.
In Isaiah 66:12 the Lord says "peace like a river". How many have you have ever been white water rafting on a river before? I sure have, and it is by no means "peaceful" in my mind! Rapids, huge rocks, raging waters...you get the picture. This is a great way to see how God has peace for you throughout all of life, rough waters included. When Christ is the captain of your life, we can trust him that he will get us through safely. We can be at peace knowing He will never leave us and loves us so much.
Let's change the way we think about peace in our daily lives, it's not only when we step back from everything that we can be at peace [these times are SO necessary though too, don't get me wrong!], but it's throughout every part of our day.
Once we let go of the tight grip we have on our lives and trying to be the own captain of our proverbial raft, it's then that we can open up our arms, throw our head back and let God fill our lives with Him. 
God wants us to live in His freedom. In Galatians 5:1 it says, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." When we live for Christ instead of living for this world and when we put our hope in Him, there is this unbelievable peace that comes from that. The kind of peace that fills your heart, your mind and spills over into everything you do. It makes me think of the photo at the top of this blogpost... a releasing of all worry, stress, expectations, hurt and fear and just asking to be filled with Christ's love. "God here I am, all I want is you...and all I have is yours". I'm all in. 
Romans 15:13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.


Callie Goodwin




Listening to: Elevation Worship- www.elevationnetwork.com

Living our faith? How?

Christian Teens...


Why can we go on mission trips and be pumped about sharing Christ, But are afraid to mention God's name in school?


Why can we love the people in other countries when we can't love the nerdy kids?


Why are we on fire for Christ after a church trip, but fall back into the crowd and the "cool" thing when pressured?


Why do we live 2 lives?


In doing this, we are showing people that it's not that importaint to us to live what we believe ALL the time. and why would we want to show people that? When we conform to the world's ways, we are showing people that Christ must not be our most important priority if we are resorting to the worlds way to become popular. Do we really want all those people to look at us and get the idea that Jesus isn't that important? What if you actions were the reason they decided that Jesus wasn't too important? What if that was their last day on earth? Where would they be? We are suppose to be a unified body, We are all different parts with different purposes. If everyone got serious about living their faith, there would be 100's of us. Think about 100's of us in all the different cliques at school...Think about if each of us was surrounded by at least 5 people that were changed by how we live. that is over 500 people who see Jesus' light.


We need to get serious about our faith. Personally, I can bare to loose another one of my friends and not know if they chose to accept christ as their savior or not. it's something I think about daily, and always wonder if I lived and shared my faith the way i should have, if he saw enough Jesus in me to know that he is the only way.


I never want to experiance it again, and don't want you to ever have to as well.


think about this, and let me know your thoughts.


As Stuart always says.


We have inhearited a mess of this world. We are going to change it into something. The question is what are we going to change it into?




Think about that.


In Christ,
Callie


Listening to: Battle by Chris August

Brazil 2011

"Brazil 2011"

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 This trip can not be summed up in words.

There is no way to convey what was truly done in this city.

You won't understand what we experienced unless you were there. But this is an attempt to tell you what God did, and how it impacted my life.

As we drove away from our friends and families on July 14th, many things started changing. Our attitudes were ready to serve, our hearts, Ready to give and love. Our minds, filled with emotions and anticipation fro what God had planned for the next 11 days. but with all that was within us, we were ready to go.


This is a hard blog to write. I have to dig down deep, get past my emotions at the moment of feeling sad and wanting to be back so much. I actually feel homesick. Not from my home in Chapin, SC. but my home in Rio vermalio, Brazil. Its a weird feeling. I met so many people while there. People who would point me straight to God, People who made me test my faith. I was challenged physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Its difficult. I'm not going to lie. But I know God did great things while I was there. He taught me what Divine appointments were. He set up exact appointments. He showed me how he could use my imperfectness in a great and mighty way to further his kingdom. Its amazing! He showed me how even if we are from 2 different tribes and tongues, we can sing the same songs and God knows we are giving all the praise to him. He showed me that simple things such as bubbles made a difference and that it didn't matter whether you spoke English, Spanish, Chinese, Blowing bubbles and painting nails is a universal thing. He showed me that I don't need things like my phone, computer, and iPod. All I need is him and to be completely consumed by him. Let him be the center of my life. If he isn't. My whole world comes crashing down at my feet. He showed me how peaceful it is to not talk and to just listen for an hour. What it’s like to leave everything behind and just hike a mountain with my bible and lay my life before him. He showed me that I could develop a special type of love for someone in a short period of time. He showed me I needed to learn to trust. I needed to be able to trust our translators. I need to trust them with what I was holding back. It’s weird how I have to go to another country to realize all these things.


One thing I did realize while here in the USA, is how much I'm loved. How much everyone cares for me. as we got off the bus, just hearing all the screams, yells, tears of family greeting us, It was like God placing his hand on me saying, why didn't you see this before, why didn't you see that you were loved this much. While in Brazil, He placed his hand on me saying, why don't you trust I have a plan, you don't believe me? My response was yes I do. He said if you do, Lay yourself down, set everything aside and follow after me. Don't look back and see the entire tragic event, see it as I’m calling my kids home. Don't see leaving as a good bye, but as an "I can't wait to see you in heaven!" See your glass as half full, not half empty. I took that advice, and am now looking at things in a new way. I see that God hasn't made the people of Brazil poor, but has just humbled them and made them grateful and caring. One thing I saw in Brazil that was a big difference was that in Brazil, People are relationship and God centered, everything revolves around God and Relationships with other people, their family. As I came back to the US, I could see we are opposite. We are centered around Money, about the economy, about how much stuff costs, and buying. There, if they don't have it, they believe they don't need it. That’s a 180 degree turn from us. It is really humbling to see that.


Now I know you thought you would be hearing stories...I can't share specific stories, without it losing its meaning. As we talked about in Brazil, sometimes, the meaning of what we were saying sometimes got Lost in Translation as our translator translated. It’s the same now. The meaning, the excitement, just isn't the same to someone who didn't live it, and doesn't know what it's like. I can tell yall that we built houses, hung out with kids, did VBS, Door to Door, dressed as clowns, shopped, and made bracelets, but if you didn't experience it yourself, the emotion and its meaning gets lost, and when that happens, it gets really discouraging. Feel free to ask about how stuff went. Like specifics, but when you just ask, so how your trip went, what you did...It just gets so overwhelming.


If you've reached this part, you’re a real trooper through my ramblings. Good for you! Thanks for reading. A couple of ways you could be praying for me now is:


- That I wouldn't forget what the Lord taught me everything he showed me about myself and about my life
- pray for my post-missions-syndrome as I adjust back to normal life even though it feels like it can't happen.
- That the Lord would put His word in my mouth
-that I might be broken for the sake of the Gospel


These lyrics to these 2 songs meant the most to me while in Brazil. Check them out if you want to!


Tempos melhores estāo por vir obras maiorse se farāo neste lugar
(Greater things have yet to come, and Greater things are still to be done in this city)


Where you invest your love, you invest your life.


Thank you for reading. Feel free to leave me a comment, I would love to read them. Also, don't take this in a way that you think I don't want to talk about Brazil. I do. I just am not sure how to convay the emotion of the reality.


Love,
Callie

Listening to: God of the City

Grace and Orange

Today...

A lot has been on my mind.

I have wondered where I would be if some of life's challenges hadn't been thrown my way. Would I have the same relationship I have with Christ? Would I be here at all? I'll never know, because that is not the way things are. I am saved, by grace. Something that is so hard to grasp. Grace. Do you know what that truly means?

Grace is complete forgiveness that I can't, by any means earn. It's a pure gift from God that we don't deserve and it can't come from any one else.

For someone like me who likes logic and likes to wrap my mind around stuff, this is a hard one, but Christ has been working so that I don't have to understand it. We can't fit God into the small window that our mind can comprehend. He is so much bigger!

Another thing i've been thinking about has to do with this really awesome children's ministry conference called Orange! If church and parents come together and collide, the 2  can make a much bigger impact that 2 separate influences. I was invited to attend, but God didn't have that in mind for me this year. I have had the chance to watch some of the worship time and group time online though, and all I can say is WOW! God has been stirring some thoughts around for the past 2 days. I may not be there at the conference, but God is teaching me some awesome stuff! and I'm getting really excited about what God is going to do through me and the other leaders at CBC. Things are getting ready to change at CBC, but instead of looking at it as a loss, I'm choosing to look at it as a new chapter. There has been a few times where I have always wondered what it would be like to be apart of a church such as Elevation or Newspring where they see people getting saved by the 100's and their pastors are well known...I thought, why can't I be apart of one of those church's that are obviously making an impact in 100's of peoples lives...This week, God has opened up a new idea in my head. He asked me, "Why can't CBC be a church like that?" Wow! I haven't even thought of that! I haven't even thought of praying for God to do that in our church. 

What if we did start praying that?

What if we gave God the opportunity to expand our ministry? 

What if we completely hand our ministry over to God?

I believe the possibilities could be endless!

I admit, I haven't been praying for this ministry the way I should be. I haven't prayed that God will be doing awesome things through us, and that he take full control. Some might say that's because of my age, and it's not. It's because up until now, I had not set any expectations for our ministry. 

I believe God is calling me to work with these kids. I believe he moved me from one place to another in order to strategically place me where I would grow the most, but also where he wants me to lead and ultimately bless me and the ministry I work with. Yes, I am a teenager, I'm 17 and proud of it. I seriously dare someone to put limitations on me because of my age. God doesn't put limitations on age. I've seen some 3 and 4 year old's who get the gospel better than some adults.

I am 17, fully devoted, and set on seeking God's will for me and my life. 

Lord,

I come before you praying that you will take full control of our ministry. Lord, I believe that you can expand it, bless it and make it fruitful, you can make it into an effective ministry that's sole focus is to help families become fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. Lord, here I am, arms and heart wide open. Transform my heart into a heart of a servant and leader for you only. You alone are in control.

In Christ,

Callie Goodwin