What a Journey!

Over this past semester, I've been attending a discipleship class every other week through Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship going through a book study called Discipleship by Design.

"Discipleship is not a protracted counseling relationship, but rather an equipping, supportive relationship involving and interacting with the surrounding community of believers in constructive ways."

A little bit of a book review: (which won't give the book enough credit, its a great book!) it is broken down into two main sections. The first part talks about the foundations and practices for discipleship. While the second part of the book talks about a practical guide for developing discipleship small groups. Even though the book talks about how Chi Alpha does things,

I believe it is an amazing book and if you read it,

you could easily apply the points in the book to every aspect of your life.

We shouldn't only disciple at church or through a bible study. 

Every encounter, everyday, we should live the life as a disciple of Christ. 

With all that said, last night was our last night of class and I would be lying if I told you that at the beginning of this journey with these eight AmaZing individuals I expected God to show up in such AmaZing

ways and work wonders through our lives. I just figured it would be like a Sunday morning bible study.
*some churches have amazing things going on, but more of my experiences haven't been anywhere near this*

There is truly a difference between the typical "bible studies" that I have been a part of and being a part of a "small group" who truly cares about growing relationships not only with God but with each other.

For us, it was more than just meeting at the same place twice a month to listen to someone lecture us about the bible.

We became a little family so to speak. We invested time into each other lives outside the designated times and continually prayed for each other and uplifted each other through out the semester. Having this type of fellowship with these students did wonders in my life. Its hard to explain but it is an awesome feeling to have. It was somewhat like a "safe place".

So I started this at work and I'm home now so the momentum is a little lost.

Long story short. God is AMAZING beyond words. He works throughout our lives even when we somewhat doubt that anything will happen. I started this class because someone asked me to. I didn't truly want to invest the time to it, but I did and I was blown away by the incredible things that I have taken away from this experience. I'm sadden with the end of our class but I pray that I will be able to use what God has taught all of us this semester and be able to apply it and touch other people's lived!

Yippy!! A Blog!!

So for those of you who don't know I only work "part-time" at the bank. The bank industry (or at least BB&T) is very strict about the amount of hours a part-time employee can have since they give extremely well benefits to part-time and full-time employees. I usually can ONLY work 20 hours a week, no matter what. This has been a challenge these last few months with graduate tuition, higher gas prices (I drive a truck and its a killer, so I invested in a new car) and therefore now I have car payments every month. Anyway, I believe you feel me. I am under no assumption that I'm the only one being hit hard financially right now. But I've been blessed this week to be able to work in the Troy branch and the Ozark branch a few days earlier (and now tomorrow as well). This gives me more hours and I love it!

Sitting all alone downstairs in the drivethru in Troy this morning I've realized how much free time I actually do have if I would just rearrange some of my schedule. For example, I've been saying that I can't blog because I don't have any time. Well come to find out, Google is one of the allowed sites at work and work is usually very slow, so ta-da! I know have time to blog!! On a more important note, I've been struggling in my "oh so hectic life" to find time everyday to spend some quality quiet time with God. Staying up late to work on school work, therefore sleeping in late to catch up on sleep... I find an excuse for everything. No more excuses!! I'm rearranging my schedule, finding one that fits with the major of my days and sticking to it.

Not only am I going to free up some of my time, but I'm going to free up some of my money. I've been praying about budgeting. Being a part-time employee and having my hours fluctuate every week makes having a strict budget hard to follow. With this too... I make too many excuses. A budget is a budget and I believe that with some planning everyone can have a budget that fits their living arrangements. This includes me and being the nerd that I am, I'm excited about it!!

Hopefully more blogs to come in the near future!