insignificant worthless speck.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVVvic8okho&feature=channel

1. watch that video.

2. So Dan Brown, the video guy, just pointed out to us how amazingly huge the universe is. If his video didn't make you say "wow!!!!" then watch it again and pay attention! Now, if God created all of this, imagine how much bigger He is! Ok? So God is HUGE. Dan makes an interesting point by calling us insignificant, worthless specks. I can totally see how he would think this, but I beg to differ. I know that God loves me and has a plan for me, an insignificant speck, to give His name glory. God loves us tiny, stupid specks enough to send His only son to die for us... to enter in a relationship with us... to give us an opportunity to join Him in heaven... to allow us to love Him back and even tell Him what we want and need!

I don't know... I was just watching random videos on youtube and had a "moment" and thought I would share since I haven't written in a while. =]

no sense!

This past month or so I've really been struggling with prayer. It simply did not make sense. I know I've posted about this before... like, I didn't understand it then, but wanted to pray to talk to God. I still didn't understand it, but no longer wanted to pray about things. I prayed, but I never told God what I wanted or gave Him my requests. I didn't see how what I said could change God's mind or how asking for something would make Him give it to me. I knew that God has a plan for everything and I just couldn't see how my request would make Him change that plan and if it was already in His plan, then I didn't need to ask for it. So I didn't.

But it began to seriously bug me because every single time I heard somebody pray, they asked for things. People asked me to pray for them. I even asked people to pray for me. But I was in major doubt that prayer could affect anything.

After some research, there are a few verses that have helped me to understand.

Matthew 21:22 "If you believe, you will get anything you ask for in prayer."

Psalm 37:4 "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart."

Matthew 7:7-11 "Ask, and God will give you. Search and you will find. Knock and the door will open for you. Yes, everyone who asks will receive. Everyone who searches will find. And everyone who knocks will have the door opened. If you children ask for bread, which of you will give them a stone? Of if your children ask for a fish, would you give them a snake? Even though you are bad, you know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more your heavenly Father will give good things to those who ask him!"

To complete my thoughts, I'm going to quote my diary:

"If don't think if I asked God for me to wake up tomorrow perfectly beautiful it would happen. But if I ask for the things God places in my heart, He will give it to me. If we're in love with God and really are in a relationship with Him - talking to Him, listening, etc. - then His desires become our desires. And when we ask for our desires (which are originally His), He gives them to us! All we have to do is ask! And WHY would God want to wait for me to ask? Because He loves me. And He wants me to see that. Like when Dad buys something for me after I ask, I feel loved. I think it's the same thing."

So I'm understanding it more. Now I am giving my requests to God. And for the first time, I think I'm praying expectantly. I know that God puts certain requests in my heart and I know that He's going to answer them.

what a weekend!

This weekend I went to the beach with a few amazing friends.

This weekend simply amazed me. We got there Friday morning at 2am, slept for about 3 - 4 hours, woke up at 7 and went to an absolutely gorgeous waterfall. It's called Cachoeira Paraiso... and for good reason. The water was crystal clear and kind of cold, but not freezing. It was beautiful. You could lay down on the rocks under the waterfall just the power of it. Then, we went to the beach. It was not what you think of when you think of a Brasilian beach. There were no vendors or crazy kids running everywhere or big buildings and hotels in the background. It was simply sand, big waves, mountains in the background, rocks that you could climb on, and maybe 3 other families. It was super super super nice. So we returned to the house, took showers, and hit the town for dinner. There was a parquinho like the kind in the Notebook. It was SO much fun! We rode a little kids ride and had a blast and then rode this other one that made you INSANELY dizzy.

However, this weekend was hard. It was super fun and possibly one of my favorite beach vacations ever, but it was hard. On Thursday, before we left, one of our hands-on guys had to leave unexpectantly because of some things back at home. Sean is a really really cool guy and while he was here, he really did teach me a lot of things. Saying goodbye to him was hard... goodbyes are a constant thing in my life and any goodbye is hard for me, but this one was especially hard. The cool thing was that God knew this goodbye was going to be very difficult and planned this beach trip in such a perfect way for me. He put the exact people I needed in the trip and did the exact things that I loved. This weekend was such a God-weekend... It's hard to describe. But, God really took care of me and gave me just what I needed. I remember saying various times to the people there, "guys... I'm so happy!" It's just and indescribable happiness. It's not like I just won a competition and I'm happy. It's not like it's my birthday and I'm happy. It's joy, I guess. Just knowing God loves me enough to plan a trip for me to get over a goodbye is awesome. This weekend could not have been more perfect and I can't thank God enough for the great friends He has given me and the love that He has for me.

=]

You know when you think you've got it all figured out and then you suddenly realize that you don't have it all figured out? Well, yeah. Tonight, God really revealed more about Himself to me. And earlier I thought I knew a lot about Him! Like, His powerfulness and almightyness and awesomeness drew me to Him and just made me fall completely in love... yet somehow I got frustrated with that, and even a little bit bored. Because He is great, I wanted to be greater... like, greater as in a better person, you know? I'm the type of person who always strives for more... I want to be better and I am perfectionist in a lot of ways. And when I started to not meet these expectations that I had of myself, I put myself down and became a disappoint to me. And because I was a disappoint to myself, I thought my friends saw me that way and my family saw me that way, but worst of all, I thought God saw me as a disappointment. And that crushed me.

So, what did I do? I did what I grew up doing. I had my devotions before going to bed - but not because I wanted to or because I learned anything from them... I did it because that's what I thought I had to do. I did it because that's what a perfect Christian girl does. She reads her Bible, she prays, she writes in her journal, maybe listens to a couple of praise songs... and then falls asleep trying to pray for her family and friends. So that was my routine for a few weeks. And I didn't get any consolation from the Bible that lasted and I didn't learn anything that changed me or anything like that. But kept on doing it because that's what I had to do.

But tonight, I got on my iTunes and saw I had a new podcast from Francis Chan. I had nothing to do other than homework, but that's boring, so I decided to watch the podcast. 20 minutes in the sermon, I was getting bored and usually that's all I watch. Enough to get the message, but not enough to REALLY get the message. But, tonight, something compelled me to continue watching so I watched all the way through. And God just spoke to me. So much.

Before, God's might and power brought me to my knees, but now it's His humbleness, love, and daddy-ness He has that just makes me stand in awe and cry because I don't deserve any of it. God is so amazing. How cool is it just to simply be able to run to God's throne, sobbing and cry out "Daddy!!" because of a simple bad day or something? It doesn't matter when or where we are, God is our Father, He's Daddy and He loves us so so so much that He cares about our bad days and understands us more than anyone ever will! He lets us sit on His lap and hug Him, just talking about our life... and He's going to listen and care.

And, of course, I've heard this CONSTANTLY through my whole life. Recently, a friend explained this to me with the kind of passion that I now understand. I hope and pray that you understand how amazing this is too because it's so so awesome. How cool is it to be in love with the Creator and He's completely in love with us too? God, the King of all kings and Lord of all lords loves me enough to hug me when I'm crying and love me more anything else.

great expectations

gente, first off let me say sorry for not being a faithful blog-updater this semester! i would say i will try harder, but i'll probably forget about it and not try harder, so i'm not going to make any promises.

secondly, tonight i almost died. hahaha ok, maybe i'm being a

bit over-dramatic, but it was a big deal! you see, we were cooking dinner, but when the oven was turned on, we forgot to make sure the fire lit. it didn't. so the whole oven was filling up with tons of gas. uh-oh.

i was standing in front of the oven making the pizzas when leticia smelled gas. she went to the oven, turned it off and opened the oven. BAAAAAM!!! the door flew open, the oven flew away from the wall, the tea kettle fell behind the oven, and everything on top of the open literally flew all oven the kitchen. see the pics:

the gas could have blown up the whole house. any one of those things that flew off of the oven could have hit me or leticia and done some serious damage! i was scared to death after i heard the huge explosion behind me. i don't even know how i jumped out of the way in time!

but god really used this experience to teach me something. lately, i've been really expecting a lot of myself and it was killing me because i couldn't reach my own expectations. i felt like i was a disappointment to my friends, to my parents, and worst of all to god. but truth is, i was only disappointing myself.

as leticia and i were walking down to the guys' house to watch a movie, we could only talk about how incredible it was that god protected us and nobody was hurt! as i thought more about this, i realized that god doesn't need us to bring him glory. through this scary event that happened tonight, he brought himself glory. it wasn't anything that we did! sure, he uses us, and wants our lives to shout his name, but he's going to make that happen. he's going to use our lives in his timing to make his name great. he doesn't expect us to be perfect or to know all the answers. he doesn't expect us to always have courage or be strong. he's going to bring glory to himself when only he can be blamed for it and when we can't steal his glory.

as much as i want to bring god glory and to be a super spiritual leader and just be... awesome in god's eyes and in man's eyes, it's okay to learn and to grow. i'm not all that i'm going to be. god will build me up into the person he wants me to be and he's going to help me do whatever i need to do to be that person.

as usual, i'm not sure that any of this made any sense or anything, but i'm just writing what i feel and hoping it all comes together some way!

-- rachel

tell me what i wanna hear

Last night I was a kind of down because I was in an awkward situation that requires A LOT of patience and really has no solution. I was talking to a really good friend of mine about it and we talked about the situation and decided that there was nothing to do except wait and see what would happen. I felt a bit better after talking about it, but I was still kind of frustrated about it.

Then, I was about to go to bed when I found a note from that friend that said that she was thinking about it and God wants to be in control of ALL situations, including the one I was in (which, really isn't a BIG thing. It's actually kind of stupid if you stop to think about it). But, she was totally right! She told me that we didn't have to just wait. Instead, we should pray. So I did. And I realized how sometimes I'm so dishonest with God and I say what I think He wants me to say. But, I think He wants us to be honest with Him and tell Him what's really on our hearts. I mean, He already knows, so what's the shame in telling Him?

So I told God what I wanted and if it wasn't His plan for me to get what I want then to make me stop wanting it and change my heart. I told Him how stressed I was and even blamed a lot of the stress on Him. I was completely honest with Him and even though it didn't resolve anything, I guess I started seeing God more as a friend than just God or just my Saviour. God is so many different things and He's always teaching me more about who He is. He's holy and great and majestic. He's in control and mighty. He's loving and merciful and ruler of the universe, but He's also my friend. He listens when I have a lot to say and holds me when I cry. He loves me and wants to spend time with me. He thinks I'm pretty cool and wants me to tell Him what's going on and what I'm feeling.

It's something I've always known about God, but I feel like I'm now truly discovering it. And it's still kind of a weird concept for me to grasp. I only know about 1% of how holy and great God is and when I really get to thinking about how huge God is, I'm totally in awe. But that God is SO awesome is my friend. I mean, try to wrap your mind around that. God thinks the world of me and wants me to talk to Him and wants to talk to me too!

Coolness. =]]

coragem!

so... sorry i haven't written in a long while. :P

i've been reading a lot in acts lately... i've never really read through it until this past month. i'm still only on chapter 14 i think, but it's sooo amazing! the disciples all have so much courage! it really amazes me... in every chapter i always notice their courage. but one example that just continually wows me is in chapter 11. peter is alone and God gives him a vision. there's a large sheet being lowered from heaven. in the sheet there are a ton of different types of animals in it. there's a voice that say "get up, peter; kill and eat!" peter refuses and says "no, lord! for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth!" and the

voice answered "what god has made clean, you must not call common." this happened 3 times and then the sheet was drawn back up into heaven. weird vision, right?

well this happened right before a couple of guys came to pick peter up to go to and god told peter to go with them so he did. peter later goes on to explain his vision that the gospel isn't just for the jews, but for everyone. what god said to peter changed everything and the fact that peter was not embarrassed or afraid to share it changed a whole lot more. and then tipo, if you go on to chapter 12 (go read it! it's awesome!!) it describes how peter broke out of prison miraculously! it's just so cool!

so basically, there are 2 things i want to say right now.

1. if god tells you to do something or lays something on your heart that you need to share or whatever, don't hesitate. god doesn't make mistakes and even if you what you have to say is small, you never know who is listening and what impact it might make on someone.

2. if god can let peter just walk out of jail can he not get me through my day? this past month i've been super stressed with hard classes, difficulties at work, college apps, etc, etc, etc..... and there are some things that i would like to be able to do... weaknesses that i see in myself, i guess, that i would like to improve. but, it's hard because the things that i would like to do require confidence in god and courage to take the first step. but if god can have an angel just walk peter out of jail like it was nothing, then why am i afraid to take those first steps??

anywayyy, since brasil is soooo awesome and has the best soccer players in the world, here are some pics of me and some friends watching the brasil x argentina game last week at pacaembu :]