sometimes it isn't always easy

well its been a while since i wrote.

a lot has happened and the whole point of this blog was to share in the highs and lows of walking through life with Christ. well. needless to say i have done one of the poorest jobs a blogger could possibly do and have not updated anything since idk september? i don't even remember. but now i guess that season is over and its time to write again.

in by no means have i perfected anything in life or my relationship with the Lord but i am growing and i am learning and i am not the same girl i was when i first set foot onto ODU, i am not the same girl from five months ago also. the Lord is constantly pursing our hearts and pruning the things to make us becoming the men and women of God he has created us to be.

since the last time i wrote a lot has happened. in december my dreams came true and i was placed as a young life urban leader. i now lead inner city young life at a wonderful school called Norview. i had no idea that this would be the hardest thing i have ever done in my whole life. i dont really know what i was expecting but it wasn't this. the feeling that my heart would literally be ripping in to pieces when i see the girls (that i don't even know) walking in the hallways enslaved to the things of the world. or the everlasting longing in my heart that one day these kids will live in freedom.  free from sex, drugs, alcohol, relationships, grades so many other things that i don't even know about! there are days when i want to give up because i know that i am going to fail the Lord yet again today and probably tomorrow. i still can't figure out why the Lord has picked us to be a vessel for his gospel. Oh how foolish i can be with such a great responsibility!!  however the Lord is good. he is forever relentlessly pursuing us to draw him closer to him. he also is full of grace and when the days come around and i see my worth in how good club went he refuses to look at that. he sees me. he sees my heart behind it, he sees the attempt and says "Hailey!!! you're doing a great job!!! i am so proud of you!" so many times i get so caught up in seeing my failures. and thank goodness for a God who chooses to see my attempts and celebrate my success instead.

leading has been scary. actually terrifying and a lot of times i chicken out of contact work. walking into Blacksburg high school where i went to school for four years is completely different then walking into a school where you know nobody. after i first got placed i would go up to Norview to the basketball games and sit by myself cause i didn't know anybody there. i would see the kids and would think wow i probably shouldn't have worn these neon yellow crocs and XL animal shirt. (way to go Hailey, winning these kids over one weird look at a time.) after a few times of that it wasn't going anywhere so the Lord was calling me to go farther and give up all the ways i thought would reach kids best and go for the ways he thinks his kids would be reached best.  its funny because the Lord knew my heart and he knew i was not settling to continuously walk into Norview high school without being able to say at least hi to anyone. So the brilliant idea of dum dum suckers came to mind. The plan was to go to the school and hand out dum dum suckers to kids. This not only forced me to say hey to kids and ask them if they wanted a sucker but it also created an opportunity for me to go onto kids turfs. It allowed me to go onto the turf where i did not feel welcomed at all. well needless to say i was pumped about this idea until the day came and from the moment i woke up until i was walking back to my car i thought i was going to throw up everywhere. i was so nervous. i literally talked myself out of it multiple times. i also cried on the way there and told the Lord i didn't want to go and that it wasn't worth it. but in this time i had no one else to rely on except for our sweet sweet Father who had me all along. From the moment i woke up all i could do was complain. no joke. all i could think about is how i couldn't do it. how this was such a creepy idea and kids would not accept anything i was trying to give them. so that morning the Lord provided. and as i was reading acts 20 this came up

acts 20:22
and now compelled by the Spirit, i am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there.

i would love to be able to say that solved everything and made me feel aton better. but it didn't. after reading that instead of telling the Lord i couldn't do it the complain changed to. "great, now i have to go. " after going to class i got in my car in went kicking and struggling the whole way there in the Lords tight arms around me who refused to let me go.

That day was a big step forward. kids ended up taking literally handfuls of suckers multiple kids came back and got more. i held the door open for kids and just opened the bag and literally the Lord had the rest because i was too scared. but thank God literally because that was one of the first steps i got to take to earn the right to be on Norview kids turf.

Later on in that acts verse it says verse 23-24 i only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. However, i consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and compete the task the Lord Jesus has given me --the task of testifying the good news of God's grace.

this semester has been a straight 90 degree uphill climb. i have literally complained every day. most of the times about the stupidest things. I've missed a lot of opportunities because of my pride issues, and because i don't think that the Lord is big enough and i try to do it myself. i have gotten to the point where i didn't think i could go another day, or lead anymore. but our God is a God who when he takes us on an adventure he's not sending us to places where we can't handle. he is not sending us to places where the water is too deep, the kids are too lost, the resources are not enough. he is sending us to places where he already is. he is sending us to places where yes we will fail, we will struggle a lot. but he is not letting go of us. he is not giving up on us. and he will continually push us to harder places where darkness seems like it is winning. and it is mortifying and we don't think we can take one step further. but he is that tiny light shining in the distance blinking saying i am already here. i want you to continue the work i have already started here. because in the end our goal here on earth is to testify about the magnificent, life giving, beautiful, scandalous, freeing news of God's grace.  because God is not settling until every single one of his children come home.

heres to the day when we run into the arms of our Savior in eternity and the struggles of this world will be no more and the race will be complete. don't stop running hard. don't stop living your life in great leaps of faith. keep your eyes focus on the author and creator of your life and he will be the one who carries you through it.

all my heart.
hp

fulfilled hearts

i havent wrote in a while. i think i could come up with a lot of excuses as to why i havent blogged but there not legitimate. i just want to write when i want to write and when my heart wants to write. im a little over two months into college and it is the best. i love old dominion. everyday i am overwhelmed with how the Lord is completely in control of my life (whether i would like to admit it or not) and his plan is incredibly better than what i could ever dream of. i think about last year and how dead set i was on Appalachian State and how now by a gut feeling im here at ODU and i literally cannot see myself anywhere else but here in the heart of norfolk.

something that has been on my heart and something that i am learning alot about right now is that the Lord is relentlessly fighting for you. and there is absolutely nothing in this whole world that is going to stop Him from coming and getting you and pulling you into his arms and looking into your eyes and saying i love you. this world is broken. we are lost. and we are wandering around searching for something to fill us. we try to fill a longing deep in our hearts with things that the world has said  YES! this will fill you! if you have this, if you own this, if you do this, if you look like this. you will be satisfied. we are constantly running ourselves into the ground trying to live up to what others think of us and we forget that we are not held to a standard of perfection but we are held to a standard of grace.  that the material things we are filling our lives with doesnt matter. that no one else's opinion matters. we forget that the only thing we need is a Savior. and his name is Jesus. we are constantly attempting to run farther and farther away from Him. He who is the only thing that will fully heal us. He who is the only thing that will truly fill us. He who is the only one who is constantly running farther and farther ahead of us so that he can hold us and carry us home when we turn to Him and say Lord i cant do this on my own any more. if we were only to let go of our pride, and shame, and allow ourselves to be completely vulnerable, the Lord would take that and make it into something far more beautiful than what this world could ever make of it. He would take our messy, stained, prideful, broken hearts and give us a new heart that is overflowing and radiating with joyous praise.

i think if we were truly able to let go we would live differently.  i think we would see people differently and i think we would so deeply that it would leave people baffled with what had just hit them. i think that we would experience life to its absolute fullest. i think that everyday we come to a point where we can choose joy, we can choose life, and we can choose Jesus. but its an everyday choice. and sometimes we mess up and choose things that aren't Jesus and thats when we have the amazing opportunity to come back to the foot of the cross and lay it all down. and once we lay it down we are redeemed children of the Lord. freed from the power of sin. made new by the spirit of Christ.

i hope to blog more than i have in the past months so def check back in (: this week really seek Jesus i promise you its worth it.

all my heart,
hp

experiencing Jesus

The other day i was reading The Younglife Leaders blog (read here) and they had this post about Tim Keller's Advice for helping teenagers grow in their faith. And i read it once and its a super sweet post but it didnt really hit me till a few min later this one part really stuck out to me. Tim Keller said:

'Teenagers have more information about God than they have experience of him. Get them in places where they have to rely on God."

um seriously? yes. thats all i can say. not only is this applicable to ATON of my friends not only that are teenagers but young adults and older adults but to myself. I think so many times i get caught up in knowing who Jesus is. or going to places that tell me about Him. and i forget so many times that i need to get to a place of knowing him personally. Having to depend on him in situations where i physically, mentally, emotionally, and/or spiritually cannot handle it. This idea that Jesus is static (Lacking in movement, action, or change, esp. in a way viewed as undesirable or uninteresting.) only leaves us empty. well i know it leaves me bored, dead, empty and many other things that i dont like to be. I often forget that our God is a dynamic (aggressive, changing, charismatic, effective, energetic, forceful, influential, lively, potent, powerful, productive, progressive, vigorous, activating) God who has created each and every single one of our lives to be dramatically fuller than what society says our lives should be.

This past month i spent at a Younglife Camp called Malibu in BC Canada. I would like to say i was probably 100+ miles from civilization but it was probably only 50, and i had no communication except by snail mail that took 8+ days to get to where i was. Not only was i disconnected from every social media i have (instagram, facebook, and snapchat are my obsessions) i was disconnected from everything i found familiar. My environment, the people, the ministry itself looks very different on the west coast than it does on the east coast. Not in a bad way life is just very different from coast to coast thus making the ministry mold to the people that are involved. For me this was a little bit scary and way out of my comfort zone but then i found out my job and i was palced in the kitchen. LOL if you know me you would be laughing at this because i can barely even boil water without setting something on fire. unless its brownies.. then were gucci. But on the real i am terrible at cooking. but in these moments where i literally had no idea what the hawk i was doing The Lord provided. I did not go to work crew by myself. I was surrounded by 60+ people on work crew and summer staff that were all in the same boat i was in. And most of us did not know each other from Adam. seriously. only month has gone by and these people are now some of my closest friends. and we became a family that was centered on Christ. Things that were unfirmiliar became second nature because of how the Lord provided. in the kitchen i got to work along side of some of the most incredible people i have ever met. and im not just saying that i really mean it. These people leak Jesus with every pore in their body. i wasnt just learning about growing as a cook. but i was growing as a disciple of the Lord. I learned how to serve people in a ways i never thought was possible. The environment i was living in was obviously very different from Blacksburg. Some people joked around and said we were living on a rock but the funnier thing was we actually were. We were surrounded by water which obvi was nothing close to the blue ridge mountains i live in. oh thats the other thing mountains here literally look like HILLS or mounds of dirt compared to the mountains out west. that literally cracked me up every time i thought about it.

but anyways i think alot of times we get static in our relationship with Christ. we get comfortable where we are and stuck in a routine of doing the same thing over and over again and we forget that our relationship with Him is supposed to be full of adventure, and huge leaps of faith that alot of times we have no idea where we will end up. Katie Davis puts it perfectly in her book Kisses from Katie “We are not called to be safe, we are simply promised that when we are in danger, God is right there with us. And there is no better place to be than in His hands.” And not being safe doesnt always mean life or death, it could mean safe with your heart or with your time or money. I think this goes directly back to what Tim Keller says we need to experience Jesus. I think we can know alot about Jesus but he doesnt become real to us until we put our self in a position to see him.

i think what we read in the bible of Jesus walking on water, and feeding 5 thousand people is so attractive to us because our hearts are wired for adventure. when Jesus says to us YES i did these things back then and i can do them now in your life. we read about people in the missionary field, or making a difference in their communities, or someone doing a random act of kindness, or someone in our own lives that just lives life differently. we see these people and say i want what they have, or i want to live my life the way they do and i think thats because we see Jesus living through them and allowing them to have the greatest adventure life has to offer. and i know that our hearts are created for that, they are created to be in a real living adventurous relationship with Christ. and when we feel fully alive, its because we are fully alive in Christ.

John 10:10 The best life. 


The great adventure

I think I could make up alot of excuses as on why I haven't blogged in so long. But in reality I'm just lazy and haven't. Now I'm sitting in the Chicago airport waiting on stand by to try to get to Seattle Washington where I will embark on an incredible month long adventure The Lord has set me out on to serve kids at a younglife camp in Canada called Malibu. At the beginning of the year I started this blog so I could write down the places The Lord takes my heart whether or not I was willing and I wanted to prove to myself and others that living life whole heartedly for Christ is worth it. If you've read some posts previously it's not easy sometimes. Sometimes you feel like your drowning in a huge ocean of unknown. But then you realize that The Lord was holding you the whole time all you had to do was to trust Him. Then there has been times where there's mountain top experiences and you realize that this is what you were created to do. Then there's been the in-betweens the comfortable spots where you're just set on cruise control.  This year has been full of all of those and alot of times i found myself in the same place more than once. But as I sit here on this airport I'm slowly grasping how that this life Jesus created is meant to be shared. that life, Jesus, friends, school, family, sports and so many other things are worth it and there meant to be experienced fully. Not half heatedly but all out 110%.. Yes alot of times when we put our hearts and ourselves out there fully exposed and we fail. We hit dead ends but when we hit these patches in life that rips us up we pour broken hearts souls and spirits at the foot of he cross where we can be put back together even more whole than before by the man who created us and knew you before time even began. And then there are times we succeed and we feel whole and complete because we have purpose given to us by the one who created life itself. Either way we are truly living because we are living in Him. We don't have to fear about the lows because he is there and he is there waiting to celebrate with  us in the highs. Maybe none of this makes sense but if I could put it into one sentence or two it would be: don't be afraid to truly live because that is how life was created. And when we put our whole being into trusting The Lord and his plans we will find ourselves getting to travel along the greatest adventure of our lives.

mark 2

Today my pastor did a sermon on the four guys that carried their paralyzed friend to Jesus and then proceeded to literally dig through the roof just so he could see Jesus, and its funny because one of my great friends and i just got done reading this same passage this week. I find myself with this story reading it and missing how much it has to offer me and i just see the surface stuff instead of how deeply rooted this story is to my own life.

sometimes i really struggle trying to see Jesus. i love to fill my life with material things that satisfy me for short amounts of time. i love to try to fix my problems myself instead of asking for help. and i love doing things my way. sometimes i am the paralyzed man. i am the paralyzed man who gets to a point where i cannot do anything else to fix my condition, i cant magically heal myself, and more than likely i am probably throwing a pity party over it. however, i have these friends. these friends who without fail always show up at these times and they pick me up and drop me at the feet of Jesus. these friends that have either walked through every aspect of my life or maybe just a short while, but they know that the only thing they can do to help me is to bring me to Jesus. i think we all have these kinds of people. the people in your life that tend to show up at just the right time and they can bring a smile to your face on the worst days. they call you every once in a while to check in and say hello. or they are just simply there. maybe not every single day but you know they will drop everything to come sit and listen, or go get ice cream, or do stupid things no one else wants to do but you. i am so thankful for these friends. i am so thankful they choose to put up with my sarcastic, wild, and crazy self. i am so blessed.

then there are days when i get the amazing opportunity to be the friend. the friend that shows up one day with a mat and saying im taking you to a man who can heal you, and allow you to walk. i have so many friends that i get the opportunity just to walk through life with. and i love doing that. i love creating relationships so that one day they will know who Jesus is. i love being able to love them and attempt to show them not even a glimpse of how much Jesus loves them. i love being able to walk through the high school and talk to people in hopes that a simple hello can show how much someone cares about them. i love that. i am so blessed to witness how the Lord has used a cup of ice cream to create a relationship that will last a life time. one day i hope my friends will realize how much i love them and how much Jesus loves them. i hope they understand that no matter what i will be there for them. no matter how far away i am. and one day if they need someone to come pick them up and tear through a roof to bring them to the feet of Jesus i will.

Mark 2:1-12

New Living Translation (NLT)

When Jesus returned to Capernaum several days later, the news spread quickly that he was back home. Soon the house where he was staying was so packed with visitors that there was no more room, even outside the door. While he was preaching God’s word to them, four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. They couldn’t bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, so they dug a hole through the roof above his head. Then they lowered the man on his mat, right down in front of Jesus. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “My child, your sins are forgiven.”

But some of the teachers of religious law who were sitting there thought to themselves, “What is he saying? This is blasphemy! Only God can forgive sins!”
Jesus knew immediately what they were thinking, so he asked them, “Why do you question this in your hearts? Is it easier to say to the paralyzed man ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk’? So I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins.” Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and go home!”
And the man jumped up, grabbed his mat, and walked out through the stunned onlookers. They were all amazed and praised God, exclaiming, “We’ve never seen anything like this before!”

love God. love peope. do stuff. -Bob Goff

consistancy

hello to all. i am so sorry i havent wrote in so long. to me it literally feels like it was yesterday when i wrote last, when actually it was over a month. i guess also there has been no major life changing events that has happened that i feel like i should write about lol (: what has happened in the last month is starting of games for softball, younglife clubs on monday, a graduation date has been set (#wohooooo), and school 5 days a week. i guess most of us would call that life and im just trying to live it.

for me personally i have been learning alot about Christ's consistancy through my life. senior year is coming to a close so fast and in a daily perspective its like whoa i have tons of time but looking at it in a montly perspective it will be here before i know it. which i am excited about dont get me wrong. i am excited about moving on into the next thing the Lord has planned for me. meeting new people and creating great friendships. but it also overwhelms me, especially with the idea that i will be so far away from my closest friends, my family, everything that i am firmiliar with. so with this and alot of other things on my mind i feel like my mind never fully at rest. its never able to just stop and not be thinking about the next thing. i dont know if you ever feel like that but i know for me it wears me plum out. lol

through this season of looking forward, I have been learning that we are to look towards Christ. that relying on Him makes us focus on His plan and His plan is perfect so we no longer have to be concerned about the what the future holds. that through our days that often consist of many up and downs He will stay consistant.

we just have to trust Him.

sorry i dont have much to say but heres some pics over the past few weeks. i WILL write more SOON.

Lucas and I learning great things at Capernaum Club

 

Blacksburg Varsity Softball 2013

One of my great friends birthdays

woke up at 7 to watch this beautiful sunrise

my best friend and i went up to the cabin and stayed all night with no fernature

Gabbie and I syran rapped Kendells room after she broke records at her track meet.

the things we cling to

i think we all have that one thing we are terrified to give up to the Lord. the one thing that holds us back, the one thing we hold onto so tightly because it defines us. it shows us our worth in a humanly stand point, and in our heads we think that we have total control of it.

that thing for me was, and still is sometimes softball.

softball is something that i have played ever since i was little, something i took up and just loved it. softball was something i was able to transition with from south dakota to here. when i was little i played on a little dixie rec league and had a blast. we were just a bunch of little girls playing the game we loved. as time progressed we wanted bigger and better competion so we all started to play travel and suddenly our summers became full of hotel rooms, three games a day, hot weather, and practice three days a week.

little by little it took over my life, and my heart. i loved playing. i loved the atmosphere of it all, the dirt, the food, the teams. it was just a totally different world. but as i grew up so did the game. the pitchers got faster, the teams were more competitive, and the girls could hit alot harder. it came to a point where it was like if you want to go play college ball bad enough you can do it, you just have to fully commit to it. and like i said earlier, i love this game. so i dived in fully and put everything i had into it. practice was either all or nothing, a bunch of work outs, and when there wasnt practice i would be at the field anyways to hit off tees. (Its funny alot of times if my mom didnt know where i was 99 percent of the time you would find me at the field.) it consumed me. if i was upset i could go to the field and just hit all my frustration out, if it was nice outside what else would there to do but go hit, you know it was just everything i did revolved around softball.

as school season came around i started to put up some good numbers that i was really proud of. and in my mind it was hard work = good results. so that also meant if i worked hard i could control how my stats would look. so that motivated me to work even harder. which was great until the slumps, or the errors, or the "off days". those days where i was off totally controlled me. i couldnt leave it on the field. i carried it around with me so going to the field to hit wasnt because i wanted too but because i was terrified to mess up. i was so afraid of not being good enough. whether it was the stats on the sheet of paper or this image that i had set up in my head that was literally perfection.

time went on and i kept playing travel, i was gone from the first weekend of summer to the last. playing anywhere from 5 to 9 games a weekend. traveling all over the place from 30 min to 8 hours. i would sit on the computer and send out recruiting stuff for literally hours at a time.

and then junior year came around and needless to say my world was flipped upside down. i started leading a little bible study with some sophomore girls. and took a while. but after some time i finally realized there were other things to do other than softball. i no longer needed great stats to prove i was good. i no longer needed to play college softball because that was not my only option for my future. i realized that loving these girls because Christ loves them was so much more important than what was going on in my selfish heart to be the best. yet, i realized that but when season came around i fell quickly back into the mold of having to be the best. and if my stats werent portraying that, i wasnt a good ball player. and if i wasnt a good ball player, who was i? even though the season was different and i tried my hardest to play in such a way that portrayed i was playing for a bigger purpose but it wasnt until this fall when my chains were finally broken.

after going to work crew i had some time to think about what my future was really going to be about and after i got home i just felt like in my heart i wasnt called to play college softball, so i then decided not to tryout out for a travel team for the first time since seventh grade. It was different, but a good different i had time to do things i normally wouldnt have been able to do which was so fun. but then a day came where i got a call from a college coach. one offering me a chance to follow a dream that was set in my heart long long ago. but for the first time in my whole life i didnt want to follow the dream i had been running after my whole life because there was a dream much bigger than collegiant softball waiting for me to follow. i was so scared because i could no longer use softball as my crutch when i didnt want to follow the Lord. it was no longer something i could hide behind because now my whole heart belonged to Jesus. and i knew that that is exacetly where i wanted my heart to be.

this was what i wrote in my journal after hanging up the phone with the coach, i packed my bags and headed to the field.
September 9, 2012
Lord for years this was my sanctuary. my place where i was glorified. this field held my identity, my life, and my future. this was where i came in my times of need. here i  found my identity, and constant need for affirmation. this is where you werent allowed. this is where i got to call the shots and where i was in control. i found some of my greatest friends here. i was torn down here, and was broken. this is where my heart was found. this is where i was lost but you found me. Lord today is the day i gave everything up to you. today is the day i say yes with everything i have. i say no to my plans, but yes to your plans. i am terrified. i am broken, but i am here to follow what you are calling me to. i am scared. but i know you are in control. im sitting on this field that used to be a cage. it used to hold me tight in its little satisfaction it gave me. but now i sit here free. free from the need to be the best. free from my human boundaries. Lord, i finally feel free. and here i am. all of me.
i am free.
hailey

my senior year of softball started this week. day six. and i have alread tripped, stumbled, and fell multiple times on the things i have struggled with in the past. but the Lord has been ever so quick to forgive just like every time before. i am going to fail multiple times this year. i am going to mess up, but the difference in this year is that my heart finally understands that i am free from the stats, and records, and all the other baggage i carry along with me that ties me so tightly to this world i am living in.

whatever your heart is clinging to i pray that one that you will be freed from that. i pray that one day you will fully be freed from the things you let define you. cause on that day you will feel fully alive.