My World Race Blog!

I told you I would tell you when I got information about my World Race.  Well here you go! :)
I now have a blog for my World Race!  Sooo you should check it out!!

My world race blog is:  carmenrecord.theworldrace.org

When you get to the blog, click on the "Update Alert" tab on the left hand side of the page and give me your email address..  That way you will be sent an email update each time I update my blog.  Then you can stay up to date on what is going on in my life around the world after I leave in September!

Also, join my facebook group "Where in the World is Carmen Record??"   It will also help keep you updated on my World Race life.

It makes me so excited that you are a part of my journey too!  :)

Love,
Carmen

WHAT IF?

My Crazy Life!!

God can change your plans in such a short amount of time! Let me tell you about what has been going on in my life....

Ever since high school, I have felt a big pull towards participating in some discipleship program—whether it is a year long or semester long thing. I was looking into a program for right after I graduated from high school, but I didn’t like the idea of skipping out on my first year of college when all my other classmates would be experiencing it and I wouldn’t. Ever since then though, I keep getting that pull on my heart to do a similar program like that.

Last Monday night (March 8), I was doing my devotions and I just started realizing how tightly I am holding on to my life. It isn’t my life anyways...it is God’s life…He is just letting me live it out! As you might know, I have been worrying a lot about my next year of life...wondering if I am meant to be at IWU, if I am studying the right thing, etc.. So that Monday night I just decided to finally give it ALL over to God. And so I stupidly said—well it’s not stupid, just watch out what you say to God!haha— (I have it written in my journal..) that I WANT / DESIRE to surrender my family, my friends, my school, my love life, and so on....ANYTHING and EVERYTHING that I can possibly give to God!

Tuesday came around and I felt the pull again about giving up a semester or year for God. I thought it must be God "testing" me or something to see if I really was giving it ALL up this time. I told God that if it was His will for me, I would do it. My life IS His life. So I told Him, “Ok God, I will do it IF AND ONLY IF you send someone personally to me that mentions something about doing a specific program.”

WELLLLLL I didn’t realize that when you finally give something to God, He sometimes gets excited and acts quickly!! Haha. On Wednesday, I was talking to Brian (our youth pastor at Westview Wesleyan Church in Jonesoro, IN, who graduated from IWU last year) about his experience at YWAM during his experience at IWU. He then mentioned to me about The World Race and said it would definitely be something cool for me to look in to. I didn't tell him all that was going on with me and God during the previous days, but as I walked out of the house that evening I had that gut feeling that God was about to do something CRAZY in my life...I just didn't know what! :)

To quickly give you an idea of what The World Race is, it is pretty much a missions trip where you go to 11 countries in 11 months…backpacking it up, living amongst the poor and loving on them! :) If you would like to know more about The World Race, CLICK HERE !

Anyways, Long story short…I ended up filling out an application that night (HAHA!) and I had a phone interview this past Tuesday (March 16) that went insanely well!! Crazy, I know?!! Ahhh, tell me about it!! Haha :)

And the recent news is that I received a phone call yesterday (March 18) letting me know that I am accepted!!! Woah, tell me about it! I plan on leaving on the September Race and will not be home until the end of next July. Yes, I do understand very well that this means that I will be giving up my real senior year of college, and yada yada, there is a ton of other things I understand I will be giving up, but I know all will be OK. God is in control! And I am soooo excited about this opportunity!!!

I am trying to figure out some class schedules right now, but my professors are joyfully working with me and I think it will all work out fine for me to graduate in a year when I return to IWU the next year. EEEK, God is so good and so crazy at the same time!! haha.
I have been so emotional this past week with all that has been going on, but I am just so insanely excited!!! I have not felt this much PEACE in such a long long time! It feels so great to be at the center of God's will for my life.

When I get more information, I will let you know. I just wanted to keep you updated with all that is going on in my crazy adventurous life!

In God's Hands,

Carmen

Spinning in Love!

I feel like I just cannot get enough of God! I am sitting in the middle of the library and I just want to scream so loud and run around and dance so insanely crazy, because I am so in love!! I am SO in love with Jesus Christ! I know that He loves me...and I am soo thrilled that He loves me...but I am so excited and thrilled that I have the FREEDOM to love HIM!! This is me all the time now.. Kim Walker was so right when she said "..you will never be the same.." after you fully grasp the Love of God. And I doubt that I have fully grasped it yet either. Ahhh, so insane.

I imagine myself as a little girl who is standing in the middle of a field of flowers on a warm sunny day, with my hands high in the air, spinning around until I fall over...smiling and laughing the entire time. :) I just want to dance around and worship my King....EVERY second of EVERY day.

Do you think people would stare at me weirdly?

Passion 2010

I had the privilege to attend Passion 2010—a conference in Atlanta, GA with 20,000+ young adults who passionately loved the Lord—the first few days of the year 2010. Such an amazing way to start off the new year!! (By the way, they announced that there is going to be Passion 2011, so you should definitely mark in your calendars to leave the first few days of next January open. J)

While at Passion, they placed us in “community groups.” I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people. I loved this time with my new friends so much! There were a group of 7 of us from all over the country. We still always stay in touch for sure. They will definitely be my friends for forever. Friends who continue to remind each other what happened at Passion2010 and to keep us accountable and to support/encourage one another and pray for one another. Such an amazing group of people who have SO many awesome things ahead of each of them!

It seems a little crazy to be able to tell you all about Passion, but let me just give you a little bit of some of the highlights and how God was working in my life at this gathering:

**On the first night of Passion, Louie Giglio reminded us that it is ALL for the Glory of God. God is going to become more famous when we go through the fire than in our normal, happy world. Such an encouraging reminder to me!

**Beth Moore spoke the next morning on how God equips us to do His will. He equips us by preparing us, adjusting us, repairing us and by filling us. “There ain’t no high like the Most High!”

**Andy Stanley talked about three different chairs in our lives. Who you are, Who you know, and What you do. We are always pressured about Who we know and What we do, but we are rarely pressured about Who we are, and yet that is the most important component. Andy mentioned about writing paragraphs from your best friend, husband/wife, strangers, etc about what they would say at your funeral. These words that you can sum it all up with helps you point out about who you want to be known for.

I did this when I got home from Passion and I will be vulnerable with you about the 7 words I came up with… Positivity, Beautiful Heart=Purity, Compassionate, Selfless, Faith, Generous, and Encouraging. If you do not see these characteristics as a part of me daily, please feel free to be a good friend and confront me on these things. Thank you in advance!

**Francis Chan gave an amazing breakout one day. However, the best part of the breakout was a question someone had asked him before he actually started talking about what his breakout was about. Someone had asked him a question about Pride. I wish I could remember everything about it. (I will soon know though because they are starting to provide some of the breakouts for sell online!...fyi).

It might sound reallyyyy crazy, especially coming from me, but I have become such a huge fan of public speaking. I’m not sure why though; it just doesn’t seem like anything I would actually be honestly saying that I love. There is just a rush that goes through my body whenever I even think about it. [Random side note—Speech class is actually my favorite class that I am taking this semester.] Anyways, Francis talking about pride was so good to hear. He gave us some questions he always asks before he speaks, one being “Am I trying to bring attention to God or to myself?” Wow. I really just want to share the love of Christ with the world! I want to use my gift of empathy and just love on people who think that they are the only person in the world going through what they are dealing with. But pride is such a deadly trait and something that I have to always keep working on. I can tell you that this past year of my life, God has definitely been breaking down many barriers of pride that I never even knew I had. It has been a humbling adventure for me. But that just leads me back to Beth Moore’s talk about how God equips us to do His will as He is constantly adjusting pieces of our lives…He is bringing out the worst in us so that He can bring out the best in us.

Moving on to the main part of his breakout talk… He spoke about Holy Suffering. The thing that stood out the most with that is when we say that God is Comforter…and why would we need a comforter if we were comfortable?!

**Whew, and the most difficult subject that I have been working through and trying to understand was John Piper’s talk posing the question “Is God an egomaniac?”

I could go on this forever trying to help explain this, but I might save that for later. For now, you are just going to have to wrestle with the idea that God DOES love you immensely, but you are not the center of it all. God made you to make Him look good. Not only do we live for God’s glory, God lives for God’s glory. This is also tying in with a book of his [John Piper] as well. God has to be happy so that He can make us happy, so that in return, we can make him happy as well. Crazy cycle, but I have to say that I am quite pleased with this idea. The world is definitely not about me. God is definitely not an egomaniac…He is just amazing God!

I am just so ready to continue living my life for Jesus Christ! It has been a difficult month since Passion, but I am loving every bit of it. Just getting over myself and reminding myself that God is Who it is about...not me at all. I am ready for the rest of my adventure. J

"Is there anything left in this world that will satisfy me?"

Today I decided to downloaded the free single of the week from iTunes. The song by Vedera is called “Satisfy”. Not sure if you have heard it yet, but as I was listening to it, over and over and over in the song she sings the statement “Is there anything left in this world that will satisfy me?” ……… Yeah, I don’t know what to say...there is about a million things that are going through my mind. It is one of those moments when you just want to SCREAM in a loving way at them and give them the answer of Jesus Christ. This is when I wish that I could just shout out the name of my Savior and people would understand. This world has so many broken people in it who are just looking for something to satisfy them. We all have this hole in our hearts that wants to be fulfilled. Sadly, most of us look for this satisfaction for the easy selfish pleasures that we find all around ourselves every day.

Why are we so quick to try out these “worldly pleasures” rather than just crying out to the Lord? It sounds so easy, yet we will get sucked in to the loves of the world…which only leave us feeling empty soon after.