Today as I sat in class one of my friends handed me a packet. I starred at it momentarily and then laid it to the side, not really wanting more reading material. However, my friend told me that I should read and even take it with me if I wanted to. So I began reading a few sentences, those few sentences became a few paragraphs, those paragraphs became the whole packet. I just kept reading on and on; it wasn’t until I reached the last sentence of the packet that I saw that is was from one of John Piper’s sermons, “Gusty Guilt.” I wanted to share some of it with you. Click to continue »

Alright guys…I want you to do me a favor…take a deep breath. I know, I know it sounds weird, but do it right now. Now I want you take another one and when you breath out say a prayer. That’s all it takes. I often forget to make my prayers constant throughout the day. I have my set time blocks for me to pray and attempt to remember everything that needs prayer during these times. I even catch myself thinking, “Oh, I need to remember this for when I pray later on.” Why do I wait? Lord may my prayers be constant. How little dependency do I feel I need from Christ that I think I can even take a breath without leaning on him. My prayer for this next week is that my days will be days of constantly turning to Christ. I want to challenge you to do this the same. Take frequent deep breaths throughout the day to lift up moment prayers.

1 Thessalonians 5:17 “Pray Continually”

Colossians 4:2 “Devote yourselves in prayer be watchful and thankful.”

Ephesians 6:18 “Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.”

Intramurals are a fun way for everyone to get to be involved with some good ole’ sports. Whether you’re an athlete or clearly are not, everyone comes together to play some casual, not too competitive games. Covenant has intramural flag football, indoor soccer, basketball and volleyball. Tonight was my halls first intramural flag football game and we WON! I have never seen our hall come together like we did tonight. Everyone had a great time. Before the game started we met on our hall and painted our game faces on before heading down to the field. We got to the field plenty early so that we could go over some plays with our coaches from our brother hall. It was hilarious trying to get everyone on the same page. We had girls who had played flag football all the time growing up and girls who had never even thrown a football. By the time the game started though we all were ready to play some hard core flag football. After an hour of running, blocking, throwing, and scoring some points we were exhausted. We rallied it up with our hall cheer, I think this was the beginning of a GREAT flag football season!

A servant or a slave…this can be such a fine line. In all honesty I still don’t know where the line is. I have always worked hard at being a servant to those who surround me lately, however, I am beginning to wonder if my servant actions were actually my attempt to imitate Christ or really just wanting to be accepted by the world. I fear that perhaps the real reason I am ever a servant is because I feel it is what the world wants of me. Click to continue »

Brother hall, sister hall bonding are some of my favorite times with my hall. Each girls hall here at Covenant is paired with a boys hall to become “sibling halls” and together we do various events such as: prayer and praise, cooking dinner for each other, or even playing paintball. This morning the hall I live on and our brother hall went paint balling on Covenant’s course, used for summer programs here at the college. It was so much fun seeing the girls trying to be big and buff while the guys attempted to do the same. J What a relief of stress though; I mean nothing can quite do the job like shooting a couple paintballs, rolling around on the ground, and yes perhaps even getting shot once or twice yourself. It was so nice getting to play paint ball! There were a few of the guys who had played back home, but haven’t played since they’ve been up at Covenant. They really enjoyed getting out the old guns. Us girls held our own pretty well as well. I think some of the guys were even scared of a few of the girls. Ahh, nothing like the bonding between siblings.

What a perfect weekend! It’s hard to believe it’s already been three months since I wrote you guys saying that my sister, Janaye, was engaged. I am happy to announce that Janaye Michelle Butkowski is the newly wed Janaye Michelle Russ. The thought that I would be coming home to my whole family over-joyed me the weeks leading up to the wedding. . It’s been a year since that last happened. The days I spent at home before the wedding were draining as much as they were replenishing. We were crazy busy getting last minute wedding details in line, but spending some quality time with my sisters was much needed and so nice. Click to continue »

Accountability: The last couple of weeks I have realized how important it is to have people to keep you accountable. It’s important to make them part of every aspect of your life. I so often want to hide areas that I am worried about them meddling with and when doing this I end up shutting them out. What a mistake, God has put these people in my life to be apart of it and when they’re not, I suffer. I begin feeling alone and scared. Lord help me be vulnerable in every area of my life. Help me seek advice from my accountability partners. I just want to encourage you guys that if you don’t have someone who you can walk through life with and share every detail with, someone who will tell you the hard stuff even you don’t want to hear it—find someone. Whether they’re friends, family members, teachers God works through them in your life. Thank you God for people who continually push into my life even when I’m trying to push them out!