2017, welcome

the more I search for God, the more thirsty for Him I become.

This month starts a twelve-month [and life-long] journey of searching for the Lord in a way I've never done before. Of pressing into Him, of praising Him, of needing Him, and of exploring His infinince as he reveals more and more of his infinite, beautiful characteristics. 

I'm aching for God in a new way. This past semester I've learned some of what it's like to rely on a sovereign God because nothing else is certain. I've learned some of what it means to turn to a faithful God when I have no idea where I am. I've learned that my relationship with the Lord is the most important and the most satisfying relationship I will ever have. And with that, I've come to a point where I'm literally aching for him. 

So specifically for these next twelve months I am going to prayerfully develop a theme for each month. An area that I desire to grow in, all the while seeking the Lord, coming to know him more, and relying purely on him to bring enduring change. 

This month (1 - January), I am asking God to help me understand more of who I am created to be. Of what it means to be a 'daughter of the King' [like the title of this blog], of the gifts he's given me, and how he desires me to live my life because of my identity in Christ. But really, this understanding will only start from understanding who my God is. Each month, my theme will come out of the desire to get to know God better. Of learning who He is so I can learn more about myself and about his world. 

I'm praying that God helps me be faithful and consistent in my pursuit of him. I'm praying that he teaches me to be humble yet bold in what I learn. I'm praying that I am continuously growing in my understanding of him. I am praying that my whole life is a pursuit of his love.

Keep your eye out for posts of what God's teaching me these twelve months. I'm expecting big things from a big God and I can't wait to share them with you! 


In Him,
Alyssa Anne

1 Timothy 4:12-16

Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching. Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through prophecy when the body of elders laid their hands on you. Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.

1 Peter 1:13-25

So prepare your minds for action and exercise self-control. Put all your hope in the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world. So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then. But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. For the Scriptures say, “You must be holy because I am holy.”

And remember that the heavenly Father to whom you pray has no favorites. He will judge or reward you according to what you do. So you must live in reverent fear of him during your time here as “temporary residents.” For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. God chose him as your ransom long before the world began, but now in these last days he has been revealed for your sake.

Through Christ you have come to trust in God. And you have placed your faith and hope in God because he raised Christ from the dead and gave him great glory.

You were cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth, so now you must show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters. Love each other deeply with all your heart.

For you have been born again, but not to a life that will quickly end. Your new life will last forever because it comes from the eternal, living word of God. As the Scriptures say, 

“People are like grass;
    their beauty is like a flower in the field.
The grass withers and the flower fades.
     But the word of the Lord remains forever.”

And that word is the Good News that was preached to you.

1 Corinthians 12:12-13, 18

The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit... But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it.

1 Peter 4:10-11

God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen.

Pressing in

Duluth is finally starting to feel like a home.

I've been a student here for six semesters and the first five I consistently wanted to be elsewhere - primarily at my home in the cities, but there were many a time when I asked myself how different my college experience would have been if I'd gone somewhere else or if I transferred instead of continuing in Duluth. I was experiencing a lot of loneliness but I didn't realize the urgency of finding more friends until I got home from Chile this past August.

When I spent nearly six months in South America, I experienced community like I'd never known it before. I spent close to six out of every seven days with Abby and was so amazed at the quickness of our friendship and the depth it reached in such a short time. The types of conversations we had about how God was working in our lives and where we struggling and where we wanted to grow were conversations I'd never consistently had with anyone. It was inspiring. And not only did I experience this community with Abby, but with the Chilean Cru students and the youth group at my church as well. They were all so intentional and so caring and so interested in hearing about God's role in my life. I really never knew that level of intimacy before - I never knew what it meant to have brothers and sisters in Christ. These kids (and staff) loved on me so much and so well that when I got back to Minnesota, I craved and ached for that community again.

So this fall God prompted me to start praying for this.

"Lord, thank you for these experiences with these people in Chile. God, you have revealed to me how incredible community is and how important it is to my walk of faith. Will you provide that here in Duluth? Will you give me some girls that I can have real, deep friendships with?"

And you know what happened? I found them.

Sweet, sweet Lauryn started hugging me every time I saw her. (& you know what I thought? "Why is this girl hugging me? I don't even know her!") And her hugging caught on and I knew we would be friends.

AlyZZa (haha - love you!) was challenging me in the one-on-one Bible studies we were doing. How was it that this little freshman was so mature and so wise and wanted to grow so much? How was it that our lives were so similar (beyond our first and middle names;)? I wanted this charming girl to feel connected and loved during her first year, but I mostly just wanted her as my friend.

Tori somehow just showed up. I knew her and admired her from afar and I don't know how she weaved herself into my life, but here she is. Her spunk and caring heart are some of her prime characteristics and watching her grow these past two months has been so encouraging.

There are so many other people that have made impressions on my heart this semester - like Gloria and Becca and Sabrina and Abi and Aleah and Michelle and Kenna and Haydn - and there are a few that have so lovingly and enduringly been with me since the beginning: like Melissa, Marissa, Courtney.

I'm so blessed to have these sweet hearts up north here with me and am finding my own heart intertwined with these lives in this area. I'm learning to press in to where I am, to enjoy the moments I have with each of these friends, and to understand that Duluth is where I'm meant to be, for now, with these people.

Thank you, friends, for pulling me into your lives and for making Duluth feel like home.

He's working

I spent a lot of my semester wondering what was happening on this campus for us - why I was here; why our efforts weren't bearing fruit; why it seemed like every conversation we had was a disappointment. And then God taught me that these "efforts" wouldn't be fruitful by our own will and wisdom, but by the power and desire of Him.
One of his desires that I learned is to pick up everything I have, toss it up to him, and rely on my glorious God to take the reigns and to be there through my every letdown, every victory, and every in-between. Without this reliance (aka a little thing called "faith"), I'm not letting God be glorified. Without it, it's just me - trying to get any and all attention, hoping that what I do is good enough - that what I do is capable of changing hearts and opening minds.
But friends, that's not what happens when you take those reigns into your own hands. You fail. Because we're human! Our nature is brokenness - we're not capable of complete goodness, compassion, love, and especially not perfection.
I, as a broken human, literally cannot succeed.... but our God can. He is entirely filled with love, and from love comes everything good. And if this God makes the rivers flow, gives millipedes their legs, created every atom in your body, and lights up the world with the sun, try to imagine how big that makes him. This huge God is entirely filled with an unconditional love from which all things come. Why would I want to take the spotlight from someone so amazing? Why would I think I can even compete with that?

When God opened my eyes to this truth about a month ago, desires for Him to show up on this campus so that His sweet name, not mine, would be worshipped, He knocked on the door to our little house to show that he'd always been here. That he's working.


We'd actually met Stephanie two or three months ago. But what's another face? Another name? Not much to me, sadly.. but so much to God. We'd been walking around, butting into conversations, inviting people to come talk with us about Jesus. We would introduce ourselves, where we're from, say we're Christians, and explain that we wanna talk about Jesus with all the students on this campus. Puttin' it right out there. We hadn't had any luck yet, and this afternoon wasn't any different for us.

But it was for Stephanie.

I, myself, barely remember the conversation (I don't even remember Stephanie - an unknown face - being there) - just that it was a little awkward because I'd met a couple of the kids before. I also remember that I had hoped one of my semi-acquaintances would say something encouraging, but not a single person in this group of 10 or 15 kids showed any interest in what we were doing. We continued on, mechanically talking to lost kids, but believing they were so lost that nothing would change them.

A couple weeks ago, Stephanie told me that that invitation was the first positive Christian theme she'd heard on that campus in the four years she'd been there.
She told me she was scared to speak up in front of her atheist friends during that brief conversation, but it was one of the most encouraging and interesting things she'd heard there.
A week after this conversation, she and her friend were quietly spinning on the bikes in the gym when her friend glanced over and said, "Ya know, praying to God just gives me a lot of comfort," and didn't say anything more.
A couple weeks after that, she went to the English Club led by some of our Christian friends.
The following week, she and I both went to English Club. That day we spent playing games and finished by doing a picture survey - one that finishes with the question "In one image, what do you wish your spiritual life were like?"

Miss Stephanie responded to the question with the desire to grow in her relationship with God - to fall in love again with him, to find happiness and peace in Christ, and to refocus her life on him.

God is working.

He wants Stephanie. And actually, now he has her.
Two weeks after this, Abs and I spent some time with her, the Holy Spirit worked through us, and we tried to explain the unconditionality of God's love and Stephanie began to understand that that was what she wanted in her life. That that was what she needed.

God's really been here, working. I just need to step off to the side, catch my breath, and let him permanently take the lead to keep bringing his truth to the corners of the world.