Jesus' gifts

More Than A Miracle from Day of Discovery on Vimeo.

What I kept thinking about was how often do I just want "gifts" from Jesus and ask Him for things instead of seeking Him for exactly who He is, suffering, joy, healer, freedom-giver... when You seek Him with all of your heart, He will be found in the fullness of who He is!

in the winter, fire is beautiful

~i woke up to snow on the ground and it is beautiful! it hasn't stopped snowing all day.

~ i am teaching 93 ballet students this year spread through 14 classes a week! my babies say the funniest things and my older girls bless and challenge my heart with their love for the Lord at such a young age and their prayers and hearts to serve Him. beautiful.

~ i am teaching a deaf girl this year and that has been the most wonderful experience. she is so cute and it's so fun seeing her finding friends among the other girls there and having a place she feels she belongs. i am learning a little sign language and it's been really cool!

baby ballerina quotes:

natalie: "miss sarah grace i want to have all the colors of the rainbow"
me: "how many colors is that?"
natalie: "TWENTY!"

while trying to do sit ups..
isabella: "miss sarah grace i keep trying to sit up but my back pulls me right back down again!"

~ i am so thankful for my wonderful family... we had a really great thanksgiving holiday weekend together and i'm looking forward to the Christmas season...

~ 22 days til my birthday... i'm going to be 24 and that seems REALLY old for some reason.

~ next weekend i get to sing the most gorgeous christmas music with my sister for our old choir conductors christmas concert in chicago with the youth choral theatre of chicago - i am beyond excited and cannot wait to sing beautiful music again! :)

~i think that's everything for now.. hopefully it will be a shorter time between this and my next blog posting...

when Gracie left...

I am reminded of that day this summer in China when Gracie left.

Gracie was my buddy on week 2 of my time in China. She was the little girl that stole me and my translator, Cookie's hearts. She was the little girl that held us and sobbed with us about all the abuse that she has suffered as an 11 year old, showing us her scars. She was the little girl that danced with me every second we had free. She was the little girl who learned how to say "you are beautiful" so every single morning when we walked to breakfast she could take my face in both of her hands, look me in the eyes and say "you are beautiful." She was the little girl that walking in a crowd and feeling a little hand in mine, I would instantly know it was her.

Waking up Friday morning, goodbye day I always got that pit in the bottom of my stomach knowing the kids would be leaving. There would be this incredible ache. That Friday I hated getting up. I knew it was goodbye and the goodbye party which to me that day felt like a funeral in some ways. Reading the letters we had written for each other - how do you sum up in a single letter how incredibly beautiful and cherished and what this little girl means to you. Can you take enough pictures to capture your love for a lifetime with someone you will never see again on this side.

But I remember having this beautiful conversation with my sweet Gracie (with the WONDERFUL help of my amazing translator Cookie) and hearing God so clearly saying, "She is mine..." I can see the fingerprints of God on that little girl. I trust that God is going to do a great work in Gracie's heart and that He will fulfill what H

e has started in her. I pray for Gracie. She is beautiful and precious, and she is His.

I remember the heartbreak of getting on to the van to take her back to her school. I have never experienced that before but would go through it countless times again if God wants. Her clinging to me sobbing saying "I love you, Wo ai ni" over and over... Sobbing. Shaking. Holding hands to the end not wanting to let go... when that bus pulled away and having to sing "Beautiful day..." it truly was a beautiful day but it didn't feel like that at the time.

Right after Gracie left, hearing the news that Baby Brynn was being taken away and placed in another family (the Hedden's baby girl who were in charge of our Kunming camps) and knowing that she was being taken away. A fight we had all battled for in prayer and broken-ness and heart-felt crys to Jesus to not let this happen.

It left you so full of despair and broken-ness I had not yet felt to that depth. The type of broken-ness that leads you to almost scream at the Lord... "WHY!" I have never felt that before... I wept and cried and could barely talk to Jesus because of the intensity of the broken-ness but knowing He alone could handle this.. and knowing He was handling the whole world's broken-ness not just what we were feeling in Kunming at that moment - is mind-blowing.

I told the Lord I wanted that month in July to be for Him and to teach me what it means to love more than I currently was capable of understanding love in my current place and He sent me to China - the place where the children have been on my heart since I was about 7 years old... And oh did He teach me about love. He taught me that true-love is heart breaking. And how MUCH his heart constantly breaks over us, His children. If my heart could break so much over one little girl, Gracie yet How He Loves us and how much deeper He loves us than we could ever even start to feel, how heart-breaking and wonderful and beautiful.

I did not want to let Gracie go - it broke my heart. It breaks my heart to this day - I think about her everyday. God thank you for teaching me more about love, for breaking my heart. True love - like how Jesus loves us - sacrificial love. On the day that Gracie left...

lovveee

i looove them.
Libby Rose
Christina Marie

i am changed

i left part of my heart behind in china. and i'm so glad i went!

my heart was broken and healed. and filled with more love.

i miss this little boy isaac. i miss gracie and cookie and all the wonderful people there.

my heart was changed. forever.

china... let's go baby!

I am... going to CHINA!

This has been my dream forever! I have always wanted to go because I absolutely love the children there. I remember reading stories about Gladys Aylward as a little girl and wanting to go and rescue the children.. to hug them and hold them close.

maybe it was how they used to bind the little girls feet that struck me so deeply. if you can't walk from pain how can you dance? i love dancing it's one of my favorite things.

maybe it's because I love all children.

maybe it's because God has simply put my little China babies on my heart to use me to be His hands and feet... or maybe it's because God wants to use them to break my heart and teach me more than i ever have understood about love and how much He loves me.

i still don't understand that and never will. i hope i always learn more about how much God loves me personally so I can share that with everyone...

what if you had no one in your life to give you a hug when something was wrong. to smile at you. if you had no hope...

i cannot wait... my biggest dream coming true and i didn't even have a clue until Friday. God is showing me His deep love for me by letting one of my biggest dreams I have ever had come true... getting to hold His children in China.. i think He let me only have less than a month of anticipation otherwise i would have exploded out of excitement..

Walter Wilson Quote

"My Lord, I have mis-treated You all my life. I have treated you like a servant. When I wanted you I called for you; when I was about to engage in something important I beckoned you to come help me perform my task. I have sought use You only as a servant to help me in my self-appointed work. I will do so no more.

Lord, I give you this body of mine, from my head to my feet, I give it to you. My hands, my limbs, my eyes, my brain; all that I am inside and out, I hand over to You. Live in and through me whatever life You please. You may send this body to Africa or lay it on a bed with cancer. You may blind my eyes or send me with Your message to Tibet. You may take this body to the Eskimos, or send it to a hospital with pneumonia. This body of mine is Yours alone from this moment on."

~Walter Wilson~

I am. I am God's.

God doesn't explain himself. He explains Himself as "I Am."

Wouldn't it be cool if we could all just explain ourselves as, "I am God's." I think we all have this built-in thing to have to be something. When someone asks about your life you want to be understood and try to explain the important events in your life.

I have been meeting some of Austin's friends and it's interesting to me what I feel the need to tell them about myself. I want them to think I am good enough for Austin. (Which is kind of a joke, I mean nobody is good enough for Austin - he's so precious!) But really if we are in the mindset of God being "I am" and "I am God's" everything else falls into place. Because God knows what we need and it isn't about measuring up. I always end up feeling prideful having to talk about myself. I want my life to bring God glory only and just simply be "God's." Not anything else. I am nothing. Yet "I am God's."

yes and no.

"if you say yes to something you say no to something else."

are you saying yes to the right things?? or are you saying yes to things that will make you say no to the things you should have said yes to?

it's been raining the past 2 days and i love it! :)

1 Kings 19

I was reading in 1 Kings the other day (chpt. 18). Alot of us don't realize what that kind of ministry can do to a person. How did Elijah feel? Putting everything, everything on the line for God. Being alone (in the human sense) in that kind of ministry - he was standing for truth against 450 of Baals prophets but God was with him and is true and alive.

In the next chapter though it kind of expounds on Elijah and how he dealt with this... The queen wanted to kill him for ripping apart her idol.. (I think we all feel similar when we are exposed for having a modern day idol in our life...)

1 Kings 19:3-8
Then he was afraid, and he arose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there. But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, "It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers." And he lay down and slept under a broom tree. And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, "Arise and eat." And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. And he ate and drank and lay down again. And the angel of the LORD came again a second time and touched him and said, "Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you." And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.

Elijah wanted to die and asked the Lord to take him but then the Lord provided for him in such powerful ways... When we are doing ministry in such intense ways sometimes your spirit just longs to rest and be with the Lord and be home, for we have no home here on earth, just reflections of our true home in heaven. Elijah longed for that....

Then it gets even cooler... the food that the Lord provided him lasted him 40 days. (Sounds like when Jesus fasted 40 days in the wilderness...) then God asked him even more to go out and stand on a mountain so he could stand in the presence of the Lord....

1 Kings 19:11-18
And he said, "Go out and stand on the mount before the LORD." And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him and said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" He said,"I have been very jealous for the LORD, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away." And the LORD said to him, "Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. And when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael to be king over Syria. And Jehu the son of Nimshi you shall anoint to be king over Israel, and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah you shall anoint to be prophet in your place. And the one who escapes from the sword of Hazael shall Jehu put to death, and the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha put to death. Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him."

Elijah withstood a great wind, an earthquake and a fire before finally a gentle breeze brought God's presence. Do you feel sometimes that you are experiencing being hit by a strong wind, an earthquake, and fire.... Blowing everything you know away, shaking everything in your core and then burning it all up? Stay strong and keep your spirit listening for that is when God came, after all those things to speak to Elijah. God has not forgotten you. Even through the hurricanes, earthquakes and fires - He is there. When you feel you want to go home, He is there. And He will never put us through anything He will not give us the strength to give Him the glory for!!!!

To God be the glory forever and ever!

Joshua 21:45
Not one of all the Lord's good promises to the house of Israel failed; every one was ful-filled.

Wind

God is just like the wind... invisible to the human eye but oh do we feel Him - sometimes a little rustling or other times like a storm. It's hard to feel the little rustling unless you're very still though.. God is teaching me about being very still right now. I want to feel the tiniest rustles - not just the storms.

Rice. burnt rice.

i haven't shared this story on the blog yet - so I wanted to document it for all to hear. ((read))

i'm not known for my cooking. i can get by but that's about it. the other day however i purchased some really awesome healthy brown rice and was really excited about making it for my dinner. so having never made rice before i was completely guessing. after putting it on the stove i had no idea how FAST rice cooks... my brother comes downstairs and he and i kinda look at eachother and were like "something's burning!" so we start frantically looking everywhere. i had no clue it was the rice. so after calling a few people and not getting through to anybody and searching everywhere we called 911...

"911 what is your emergency?"

"ummmm.... something in my house is hot and burning..."

(what a gooober...)

somewhere between 5-7 firetrucks, police cars, volunteer firefighters came to figure out it was my rice.

cool. just another day in the world of sarah grace! i do love my life.. never a dull moment for sure!



(we did manage to salvage the pan with alot of soaking and scrubbing with bleach intense cleaning products!)

orphans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZgLf3rN9xg

Haiti. the world and God's heart for it. He made it. He cares.

Haiti has been on my heart alot.

Everytime I eat lately, or sleep in my warm bed, or take a shower or drink anything my heart really breaks and feels guilty because I know there is so much suffering there right now. But shouldn't this always be so??? There is suffering around the world right now but Haiti is in the limelight so my heart particularly breaks for this country but there is that hurting everywhere. Hopelessness. People without hope in Jesus...

What does God break your heart for? Are you letting God share His heart with you by spending time with Him and allowing Him to show you His heart for situations? That is something I don't always spend enough time doing is letting God's truth penetrate my life... that just shows me where my heart is though - selfish. Lord help me never be selfish and not let you radically change my life with Your powerful love!!!!

hope. always hope!

oh the depths Christ went to save us
from the pain and sin surrounding us
the most painful of all deaths and hell
3 days down...

oh the depths Christ went to save us.

oh the times i try on my own
to save myself or not remembering His love
or the depths Christ went to save me.
let me never minimize my Savior.


oh how often i do - and negate the cross
what a price He paid,
Lord bring me back to You
in every situation let my heart conform to Yours
remembering that You took this for me
let no bitterness or un-forgiveness be found
because at such a price you took those to hell.

let it all stay there and let me rejoice in your triumph!
what a day...
what joy and what love!

you my Healer and restorer
my place to learn of true Love and healing


and let me never hesitate to follow You
and show this glorious saving of my heart
let other's know of this Savior
we all need to be saved no matter how big or small
You are that Savior...
saved us one and all!

thank you Jesus!!!!!!!!!!!

excited.

because today i woke up WANTING Jesus.
wanting to worship Him and wanting Him to have alll of me.

i love waking up with Jesus so in my heart.
wanting to spend time with Him.
you know i pray for that - i want to love Him most.
having Him pulling my heart towards Him.

Him first...

you know but sometimes my heart gets distracted.
so i was excited...
excited to have a heart undivided!!!


pSalM 86:11-12
teach me to walk in Your ways, Lord
give me an undivided heart that i may fear Your name.
i will praise You, O Lord my God with all my heart
I will glorify Your name forever!

Glorious Numbing of Noses and Toeses

- emily, me, ellen, alison and rachel -

Pure joy...

I feel so blessed and privileged to have such incredible sisters in my life. After ice-skating today we went to a coffee shop and had such encouraging conversations. These girls are absolute gems and I feel so blessed to have such wonderful sisters who have hearts focused on serving Jesus and living that out in every area of life. Encouragement to the soul...

Psalm 3:3
But You are a shield around me O Lord;
You bestow glory on me and lift up my head!

C.S. Lewis

(art by John Thacker)

"To Love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be certainly wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure to keep it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness; but in that casket-safe, dark, motionless; airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable and irredeemable." ~C.S. Lewis~

Lord - break my heart for what is breaking Yours. Let me never be calloused.

God's Temple, God-prayers

This morning I was reading through chapter 8 in 1 Kings and it is when King Solomon finished building the temple. I love what he prays...

verse 54:
When Solomon had finished all these prayers and supplications to the Lord, he rose from before the altar of the Lord where he had been kneeling with his hands spread out toward heaven.

How beautiful to have a place where the Lord dwelt after many years of prayer and waiting. How beautiful to see the fruit of answered prayers.

continued in verse 58:
May He turn our hearts to Him to walk in all His ways and to keep the commands, decrees and regulations he gave our fathers.

verse 60:
so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God and that there is no other. But your hearts must be fully committed to the Lord our God, to live by His decrees and obey His commands as at this time.

Sometimes, God answers prayers quickly, sometimes years and years go by without a sign of Him hearing, but time to God is not as time is to us. So trust and never stop praying a prayer that is a God-prayer.

The more you spend time with God the easier it is to distinguish His heart and knowing how He wants us to pray. The more time we spend on our own without acknowledging and giving God every part of our lives the more confusing things get and our prayers become frantic and scattered and selfish. Let God's heart beat strongly in your heart and shape your prayers and desires. Then you will be filled with His peace and joy that passes all human understanding.


Psalm 16:11
You have made known to me the path of life,
You fill me with JOY in your presence,
with eternal pleasures at Your right hand.