Student Takeover Weekend
MESSAGE TRANSCRIPTION:
I’m Duncan. I’m a student here at Eastside, and we’re excited that every one of you guys is able to make it out today. As soon as you walked in today. I’m sure you saw students in the parking lot and students greeting you at the door. There are students on stage. That’s what student takeover is all about. We get to take over the church for a full day. Serve you guys and share what God’s doing in our lives. If you guys will pray with me and we’ll continue to worship. Father, Lord God, we come to you today asking that you look over the four students we have preaching today. Father, we just ask that the whole crowd can hear everything they say. Father, We ask that somebody out there will hear what they say, and somebody will be inspired. We just like to have people making the next steps, and we just pray in your name. Amen.
You guys gonna go ahead and have a seat. My name is Brandon. I am one of the leaders around here. I don’t know if you have noticed it yet, but we have over 70 students serving you guys today. Can we give it up for that? Yeah. So student takeover is just like Duncan said. This is our opportunity to show you guys what our students are doing in the youth ministry. Not only that, God is moving through our students. So this is our day to serve you and to show you. Before our four amazing speakers get up here, I want to give a little back story of how I asked them and how they got to where they’re at today. So most people know that Virgil has said in the past any time that he chooses someone. A lot of times, he just scrolls through his contacts and starts praying, and he just looks at names that pop out to him. So I initially just did the same thing. I heard him do it, so I’m going to try that. So I started praying, going through contacts, and these were the names that God put on my heart. Every time I sit down with these students to ask them the question, Hey, will you speak at students take over? They immediately could tell it was like going into the principal’s office. Like, they can’t say no to me. And I’m about to ask them something big. So for all four of these students and how they got here, it was completely uncomfortable. But they all chose to say yes. So can we give it up for that? So I want to go ahead and Invite Core out here, and before we get started today, they’re going to be speaking on Proverbs 3:5. And Proverbs 3:5 is the famous verse that we’ve all heard. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. As popular as this verse is. This is not an easy verse to live out in our lives. And the powerful thing is that these students are going to share their testimony about how God has actually used this verse, challenged them with this verse and brought them through, and transformed them with this verse. We’re so excited I got to give one more shout-out before we go into the service. We had a student that was going to be speaking today, but they got put into quarantine. So I actually got someone last minute yesterday and asked her to be here, and she said yes. So can we give it up for her as well? So I just want to ask everyone in the service before we get started, Extend out your hand this morning. Everyone online. Extend out your hand, and we’re going to pray over our students. Father. God, we just came to you, and we are so thankful. We are part of a church that believes in the next generation. We’re so thankful that we’re part of a church that allows us to have one crazy morning where we’re in charge. God, we’re so thankful that you put on my heart to ask these four students and that God that you gave them the spirit of strength and courageousness to say yes. So, God, I just pray for everyone here, everyone watching online, that they would listen to these stories and know that these are their personal stories and how you’ve moved in their life. And God, I prayed that this would move someone into service to know that they have a story and that it’s worth sharing. God, we thank you so much, and we pray all this in Jesus’ name. Amen. Give it up for Core.
Hi, guys. I’m Lucas Core. I’m a sophomore at Madison Central High School. And I’m not going to lie, when I got the first offer to come up here, I was really nervous. I mean, yeah, I’m still really nervous. I was surprised to be offered. Really surprised. I’m here right now, so I guess I did it. And as Bunch said, we’re looking at Proverbs chapter three, verse five, and it says.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding:*
Proverbs 3:5 (NIV)
Now, when I think about not leading on my own understanding is that there’s a bigger purpose for whatever God has me doing. He has me doing this for some sort of reason, some odd reason, some good reason. He still has me doing it. For a long time as a kid, I never really had a lot of hope. I felt as if I had lost a lot of friends. I had gone through a rough divorce, and just as a kid, I had gone through a lot, and I never had the strength to talk to people about my feelings. I never had the strength to go to somebody and talk. I just dig a person down. It just starts weighing on the shoulders really hard. I couldn’t really talk to people about troubles with friends, family, divorce. It just got hard, and for a long time, I was lost. I was searching for fulfillment. I was looking for something to get me away, give me a purpose, and just show me what I should do. I went searching for things. I tried hanging out with people, but I dug myself so deep I had no one to hang out with. Sometimes they just plain ignored me. I’d never talk to these kids. I tried to be cool, and I tried to fit in, but that didn’t work. it was hard. I couldn’t finish a full meal; I could barely eat the sides whenever I’d go to Texas Roadhouse. I had trouble doing normal things, getting out, or just eating. And it’s just hard, and it takes a toll on a person. That led me down this path of a dark state of mind. It just dug me down, and I tried to fulfill my needs with what the devil was putting in my doorstep. But it obviously didn’t help much. It didn’t help at all. I still felt as though I was missing something. I was missing Jesus. I thought it’d be the best decision for not only me but for everyone, was to go and not be a burden on anybody. I thought my best decision was if I ended it all, there would be no more pain, no more suffering. And I just thought that was best. After a few weeks, a few months of this, I finally told myself I couldn’t keep doing this. I can’t keep tearing myself down. After a while, I made the right friends and the right people. They were close to God. Throughout my life, I have known God a little bit. I knew him. I never really got close to him. One day I got invited to a life group. Randomly, just randomly, somebody was like, Hey, come to a life group. I was like, oh, okay, let’s do that. And so I started going to the life group because my friends were talking to me about it. I had this one teacher who helped me through some things, and he, showed me some verses looked at in school, which helped a little bit, but I still wasn’t really there with God, so it didn’t really help that much. After a while, I was on the edge of putting my faith in God. I didn’t really have fulfillment. I thought what I had was fulfillment. But I still knew I was missing something. I was going to Monday life groups. I wasn’t helping out of the church. I wasn’t going to Sunday services. I wasn’t doing much but life groups because I knew that’s where my friends were, and I knew that’s where I could hang out with people. I didn’t think they come to Sunday services, but they do, and then I went to church camp, and that was in Daytona. It was for five days, and that really changed my life a lot. I thought I was going to go and socialize with a lot of people and just have a ton of fun. I still had fun, but it wasn’t the way I thought it would be. My life truly changed on the day, 7/14, in the middle of the trip. I still did socialize and have fun, but it wasn’t like I thought it was. It was on the beach 1:30- 3:00 a.m. in the morning, doing Bible studies and life groups. I don’t know if that sounds crazy to you, but it sounds crazy to me, like being on being on the beach. 1:30-3:00 a.m. People obviously thought I was crazy but by 3 a.m. And people were actually joining in and sitting on the beach reading the bible and talking. It was just amazing because of how far God has brought these kids in just three days. It was insane. And we all talked on the beach, and we all just had a good time, and that was just amazing. All these kids had matured so much. They had all their faith in God. They didn’t want anything but to be closer to him. I remember the date, 7/14. As I said, the whole stadium was up worshiping, and we went overtime for about an hour because of how beautiful and such a God-given moment it was. After the trip, all I wanted to do was talk about God. I remember the bus ride was a 21-hour drive, and we sat in sit-still traffic for three and a half hours. My mom came to pick me up at church at about 1 a.m., and she had just gotten done working a really long day. And all I was doing was talking about God. And I’m sure she was just like, Will this kid stopped talking. God just helped me. He gave me fulfillment, and He gave me what I needed and everything I could ask for. He made me feel loved and appreciated, and I felt enough. If I ever did end it, I wouldn’t have been able to see how much I’ve been actually blessed and how well my life turned out to be, how amazing it’s been. I would never get to share the word or be on the stage at all. The church is the real glory of God. I wouldn’t be able to be up here talking to any of you. So after the trip, I talked a bunch about getting more involved with the church. Here I am, standing on stage right now. It’s crazy how far God has brought me in just a few months. And I can’t wait to see how far my friends have come and for the many more years to come with God. All of this is about leaning on God’s shoulder, not your own understanding. Because if I was leaning on my own shoulder, I would still be lost looking for fulfillment. When I gave God my heart, I changed. I found my fulfillment. I found everything I needed in my life.
Hey, guys, I’m Emily. I am an E.K.U. And I’m also the junior girl’s life group leader. So yesterday afternoon I was watching the U.K. football game go cats. It’s a good game. I got a text from Brandon, and he was like, Hey, we need to talk. I need you to talk tomorrow. And my first immediate thought was absolutely not. But I thought about it, and I just couldn’t tell him no. So I was thinking about it. And my devotion to this past week was just all about sharing my story. And so, over the past few months, I’ve been thinking about my story and, like all the trials that God has put me through and how I have overcome them. So I can’t make this stuff up. I actually asked God this past week to give me the opportunity for me to share my story. And I didn’t know that Bunch was going to text me and tell me to talk in front of the whole church. But here we are. And God is working. So when we look at the verse.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding:*
Proverbs 3:5 (NIV)
The part that stands out to me is trusting the Lord with all your heart. So you come to church, and you hear people tell you all the time you need to trust God. And yes, that’s important. But the most important word that stood out to me was all trusting all of your heart. So I grew up in the church. I was saved in high school. I made good grades. I try to be a good kid. I wanted to make my parents proud. But I still feel like I didn’t have a purpose. So I decided to move away for college because that’s what people did, right? I had no idea what I wanted to do. For every career path that I thought I wanted to do, I second-guessed myself and talked myself out of it. So there’s nothing that I felt like I was called to do. So my first few years of college, I was doing my own thing, going out, and I thought if I believed in Jesus, then that’s all that mattered. So I was out doing what other college kids were doing. I thought I was living my best life, having a good time, and making college memories. Right? So. As I was doing those things, I still felt empty. I felt like I was missing something, and I didn’t know what that was. So I kept trying to search to fill that void. So I searched and searched through worldly things, and I tried to find happiness and acceptance in other people. I tried to please everyone around me. Yet these things we’re still not satisfying me. So it wasn’t until I quit living my life as a lukewarm Christian that I found my purpose and was fully satisfied in Jesus Christ. So God gets all the glory for that. But I also have to give Eastside some credit because Eastside has also changed my life. So like I said, I’m not from here. So I was going around to different churches trying to find one that I really liked, and I came to Eastside. I was really welcomed when I first walked in. The message was great. I shook Virgil’s hand after he was like, Hey, what’s your name? I just went on with my day. I really did like this church, but I kept making excuses, and I would come every once in a while. But that was about it. So, one weekend I went to Dunkin, and I had just woken up with the same hair and the same makeup that I had on the night before. So I was looking rough. So I turned around, and Virgil walked right through the door. I turned around. I was like, There’s no way that he remembers me. Like, he can’t. There’s no way, especially looking the way I did. So I’m just, you know, trying to think like he’s not going to see me. But he says, Hey, Emily, I was like, Oh, no, he got me. So that moment to this day has still stayed with me because. How did he remember my name? You know, Virgil. Everyone in Richmond knows him, so the fact that he remembered my name out of all these people, it’s kind of stuck with me. And so I knew that Eastside was a special place. Since then, I’ve been coming regularly, and I found my group of people, and I’m forever grateful for that because my faith has grown stronger and deeper. So going back to the verse Trust the Lord with all your heart, it’s not saying trust God a little bit or with some things and not with other things. It’s saying to trust God with everything. You know, I say I trust God, but I like to be in control, and I like to know how things are going to go down. I graduate college in December, and I literally have no idea what I’m doing in my life. Because I fear the future, I am hopeful for my future. So even though we want things to go our way and we think that our plan is better. And it may be convenient, and it may be quicker than what got us planned. But if it’s not in God’s plan for you, it’s going to leave you disappointed and broken. So as I was writing what I wanted to say this morning. Last minute. The story in Matthew chapter 14 stood out to me. So Jesus just fed the 5000 with five loaves of bread and two fish. Awesome story. But after, He just got done. He told his disciples to go get on a boat to go to the other side. He was like, You all go do this. I’m going to go up on the hill and pray. So it’s three in the morning. It’s raining, it’s dark. Jesus decides to go back to the boat now so that the disciples see Jesus walking on water. Because that’s normal, right? So they see Jesus walking on water, and they say, A ghost, there’s a ghost. We’re all going to die. There’s a ghost. Jesus is like, Bro, y’all need to chill. It’s me. I’m here. Then you have Peter. You know, Peter’s kind of deep. He’s like. Jesus, if it’s really you, let me come to you. So Jesus said, Come. So Peter literally gets off the boat, walks on water, and, you know, the disciples are like, you are walking on water that’s dope. So Peter’s walking on water, and then he starts to look at his surroundings. He sees the waves crashing over each other. The strong winds are pulling him. And then he begins to doubt. And then he starts to drown. And Jesus reached his hand down and said, I got you. And he pulls them up, and he says, You of little faith. Why did you doubt me? And I don’t know about you, but I relate to Peter. I’m like, God if this is for you and if this is your plan, lead me that way. You know, things are going good for a little bit. And then I start to look at my surroundings, just like Peter did, and I start to compare myself and think that I’m not good enough. And I start to have doubts. Then I remind myself that Jesus said, Peter, you have so little faith. Why did you doubt me? You know, I read those words, and I questioned myself, why would I ever doubt Jesus like he didn’t quite the seas like he didn’t go on the cross and die for me. The answer is that I was battling fear and not allowing myself to fully trust Jesus. But when you trust God with all of your heart. The battles become small. And you become confident that you were able to get through the hard times because God is with you. Some of you here today can relate to my story. You feel like you are missing something, and you are searching for something or someone to complete you. You feel like you don’t have a purpose in life. You were living a sinful life, and you were trying to find acceptance in relationships and money and grades and sports. Waiting for someone to say that you were good enough. But God has already called you to get enough. See, you’re going, and you’re stuck, and you’re not getting anywhere. And you have this void in your heart, and you keep trying to fill it with the things in the world that are going to leave you disappointed. But I am here to tell you this morning that Jesus Christ will never disappoint you. See, you feel like you’re drowning, and you have your arm out saying, Lord, save me. God is right there, ready to save you. So whatever you’re going through right now, I challenge you to put all of your trust in Jesus because he wants the best for you, and all you have to do is surrender it to him. Thank you.
Hey, guys. My name’s Aubrey Crabtree. I’m a senior over at Madison Southern. I’ve been going to Eastside for about the last two years. So when I look at the verse for me, I feel like it can apply to many aspects of my life. But the main way it applies to me is trusting in God that He will love me no matter what. Me, I was really lucky to grow up in and around the church because both of my parents are preachers’ kids. I always knew that there was this incredible love that I could get and have in my heart and that it would be unlike anything else. But at the same time, I also grew up as the oldest of six kids, and for a lot of people, that seems like a lot. For some other people, it doesn’t seem like that much. But my parents are pretty young. So for me, I could always see that there were times of struggle, and I just wanted to be the relief system for them in some cases. I just wanted to be that unproblematic child that didn’t cause him any issues. I just wanted to help around the house. And, you know, I really got a lot of praise for that, and I’m very thankful for that because that was really how I felt like I got my love. At the same time, though, while they were reassuring me, they were also nailing into my brain that I needed to be perfect. And I built up a pretty bad perfectionist complex, and that ended up not going so well for me because in my brain, somehow, I got mixed up that I had to also be perfect in order to earn Jesus’s love and that Jesus’s love was not just given to me. So as many people know. When you’re building up a lot of stuff on yourself and when you have no way to get rid of all the stress on your shoulders, it can be very hard on you, and you become breakable and almost a shell of yourself. For me, I was not only leaning away from God and not trusting in him, but I was also carrying this unbearable weight, this unachievable thing on my back because I felt like I had to earn him. Which isn’t true at all because this love is unconditional. But before, I did know that. I had a lot of things coming at me. It felt like left and right. I was getting things added onto my shoulders. That was so much that I couldn’t handle it. The little things were slowly starting to send me into a spiral. Got to the point where I’d always had issues of, like, I don’t really want to get out of bed this day, or I’m just not feeling too great. I kind of ended up in this mind-space of what’s the point of getting up out of bed anymore? I don’t want to get up or even shower or just do the basic things, brush my teeth or brush my hair. I don’t even want to leave the house or see my friends. I just was so broken on the inside, and I would spend every single moment wondering. Why me? What did I do to deserve this? And what I wasn’t understanding is that I couldn’t heal on my own because I didn’t have a Jesus to heal me with that. So one day, very luckily, my amazing life group leader Haven texted me, and she is just always that open hand to me, and I’m so grateful for her. She just texted me, and she was like, Hey, Aubrey, I really miss you. I was wondering if you and Kelly are coming to Life Group tonight. Your name has just been weighing pretty heavy on my heart. I am so thankful for that because that night, I went to the life group, and I’ve been to almost every single life group since then. Life group to me became not only a place where I could trust a lot of the girls around me and speak my truth and my heart and know that I wasn’t being judged. But it also became a place where I was slowly beginning to learn to re-trust God because I wasn’t just speaking to the girls in front of me. It felt like I was speaking to him and that he was hearing me out and listening to every single word that I was saying for once. That slowly began a long, long healing process between me. That I could be loved. And despite my flaws, he still wanted me. And then, once again, my life pushed me even further, and I ended up in beach camp in July. I’m so grateful for that because the ability to just be around nothing but God for the whole time I was there really allowed me to see that I was pushing all of the negative energy that I had inside of myself toward him. It wasn’t just me leaning away from him. I was making everything somehow his fault. And that was really even more damaging to the relationship. But it led to deeper healing that I didn’t even know that I needed. Thank goodness. So I left there knowing that God loves me no matter what. And that was really great for me. But what really just speaks to me so much is that when I was focused so much on what I thought his love meant, what I thought was conditional, that was really what was breaking me on the inside. But when I started to lean away and trust him, as the verse said, I really was able to fully realize that God doesn’t just want part of you. He doesn’t just want the parts that you think are perfect. He wants all of you, and he wants your heart whole. Because no matter what, no matter what you do, no matter your flaws, he’s just yours. And once you’re all in, it is unlike anything else. Because now, even when I’m happy, or even when I feel like I’m on top of the world, I still carry this verse with me, knowing that even when I’m at my lowest points, I always have somebody to come back to. And it’s just such a great thing to know that somebody loves me despite everything that I’ve gone through. Thank you.
Hey, y’all, my name’s Bre Turner. I am a 17th grader. I’m just kidding. I thought that would be funny. I’m actually an occupational therapy graduate student. U. K. U. I’m the granny of the group. I’m just so grateful to be up here with you all today. So Proverbs 3:5 says.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding:*
Proverbs 3:5 (NIV)
To me, this is saying you’re going to have to believe that your faith and trust in the Lord are louder than the voices in your head speaking false truths and filling you with anxiety. Now I grew up Catholic, and I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful for my upbringing. I’m grateful for the foundational faith and knowledge that I have. However, I’ve never been further away from Jesus in my life. I believed that as long as my tail was in that pew Sunday morning and I knew my Ten Commandments and the Old Testament front and back, it didn’t matter what the heck I did Monday through Saturday. I was broken. This is a popular verse for a really good reason, one that seems easy enough to apply to you’re life, Right? One that’s easy to understand. However, this got really hard when my own understanding were telling and pulling me away from the Lord. My understanding was telling me that so many other people in my life have let me down. It hurt me. What’s going to make this God any different? What if, this time, the anxious thoughts that I’m feeling and what I believe about myself are true. How do I differentiate what I’m hearing in my head? And who is it from? Is it from God, or is it from the devil? Abandonment. Unloved, unworthy, fearful, not deserving, and the biggest was unwanted. That was my understanding of myself. That is what I thought the Lord gave me. And still, to this day, I struggle with these negative thoughts that these words defined who I was. That’s what I define myself as. I didn’t feel strong. I didn’t feel like a warrior. Everyone says God gives his hardest battles to his strongest warriors. I didn’t feel like that. I didn’t realize that God was giving me these battles for a purpose that was so much greater than myself. My understanding was that every girl dreams of being daddy’s little girl. And all the love that comes with that. And that dream was shattered before I could even think of it. My understanding was that if the people who were supposed to love me the most couldn’t even do that, then why is God going to want to? My understanding was that I wasn’t deserving of a normal family life. I believed that I deserved all the hurt that I had been given. I believed that was my plan from God. I believed he wanted to hurt me. I believe God sent me that hurt in that pain. My understanding was I didn’t have a father who loved me. My understanding was I didn’t have a father at all. My understanding was that because it was so easy for my earthly father to say no to being a dad, to love me. Then God’s going to say no to me, and so is everyone else who wants to have a relationship with me. And sometimes, we don’t really talk about how much childhood trauma and the neglect of those relationships have on people even later in life, even still to this day. But, Lord, if I had opened my heart in my eyes sooner, I would have seen that I had the only father I ever needed all along. If I had trust in God and not my own understanding, I would have seen the work that he was doing way sooner. I would have seen and felt the love from a father that I was aching so deeply for. I would have seen that I had a father all along. One that showed me something I felt I was so undeserving of. If I had just trusted in the Lord and leaned on him instead of leaning on my own understanding, my eyes would have been open to see that I had the greatest love before I even entered this world. I would have known that I was created for a purpose and that he has plans for me that are continuing to unfold in front of me each and every day. If I’m being honest with you all, I could stand up here, Lord. I could have a whole sermon series on all the anxieties and traumas that I’ve dealt with in life, from divorces, absent parents, deaths, and illness. I mean, you name it, I’ve probably dealt with it in some way, shape or form. But I have 7 minutes with you all, so I’m going to spare you a little. But what I am going to tell you is that when my heart was so randomly guided to Eastside three years ago, my life completely changed for the better. Now, my husband and I are from Louisville. We had no intentions of staying in Richmond. This was a culture shock to us. We didn’t want to stay here after we graduated. We were like, We’re going to head back to Louisville. There ain’t even a target in this place. But Eastside made Richmond home for us. And God had bigger plans for us to keep us here. Now, three years ago, the girl that came in those front doors at Eastside is not the girl that is standing in front of you right now. I was truly finally able to let the Lord in my life and trust in him with all of my heart, and truly apply this verse to my life. It was then that I was able to see the story that God had created for me. Only then was I able to see how far I had come, what I had overcome, and what I have to look forward to now, knowing that this father is on my side? Only then was that able to see that through it all? I was never alone. It was then that I was able to let the love from the Lord be louder than my own understanding. If I had listened to him instead of the devil, I would have seen the areas of my life that I thought were filling me up, the typical college life, doing all the things that the devil wanted me to do. I would have realized that those areas and the relationships that I was pursuing were not sent from God. They were pulling me away from God. This life was exhausting. I didn’t understand that God’s love was unconditional. I was chasing love in everything I could to fit in with this crowd. We liked these people and hung out with these people. All this was doing was pulling me further and further away. I was chasing those feelings of wanting to be loved, wanting to be known, wanting to be wanted by everyone but God. I was chasing everything I was neglected as a child by who was supposed to be my father, everyone but the man who wanted to be my father. And through it all, he still loved me. God loved me enough to lead me to this church. He loved me enough to place people in my life who transformed not only my relationship with myself but my relationship with my now husband. Blessed us with friendships that we could have never asked for and opened doors that I never thought would open because I chose to trust in him. God led us through a life group who so quickly became our best friends, prayed over us during our wedding ceremony, and one of our best friends was the minister for our wedding ceremony. Because I chose to trust in him instead of my own understanding, I was able to choose a life living for him instead of a life running from him. People kept saying someone needs your story. Someone wants to hear what you went through. Someone else is going through what you’re going through. And I didn’t believe it at all. I didn’t want to share it. I don’t want to talk about it. It hurts. It still hurts. And so God led me to the side and led me to be a life group leader for E-middle. Choosing to trust God wasn’t easy. I was giving up everything I wanted to be on campus. I left my sorority, and I left friendships. I left all these things that I thought were doing what I needed to do because I wanted to be here leading my life group on Monday night. I wanted to be here leading my life group on Wednesday nights. And so I left what the devil was pulling me to so I could go to where God was pulling me to. I wanted my identity to be in myself so badly I idolized everything instead of letting my identity be in Christ. God needed me to be for those students, but God needed those students to be for me too. God allowed me to see him move through a whole new light in these students. He gave me these students to love on and share how I persevered through the times that I did because I was their age, once battling my own battles. At the same time, they were battling theirs. But the thing that’s different is I didn’t have someone pointing me back to Jesus, back to the foot of the cross. I had people instilling anger and hate in my heart instead of teaching me how to forgive someone who didn’t ask for forgiveness. These students have helped me become all in Christ. These students have allowed me to see Christ in my life and allowed me to help others overcome those battles and let them know that God loves them and that he’s there to walk through those fires with them. Because I did this and trusted in God, I was blessed with friendships at Eastern, too. I was blessed with friendships who knew Jesus and gave me opportunities to be around people who also loved Jesus, even when I wasn’t physically here at Eastside. God’s now able to use me as a vessel for his love, not only for my middle schoolers but for my friends at E.K.U. Trusting in God can be hard, but it can also be the most rewarding thing you do. Known. Heard. Loved. Desired. Deserving. Fearless. And wanted. These words now define my understanding of the Lord’s love for me and the people he has blessed me with. I’ve been blessed to see that through the darkness in my life, he loves me then just as much as he loves me now. I see now that when the crippling thoughts of anxiety are creeping in, God uses my husband. He uses the people He’s placed in my life as a vessel for his voice to remind me that I’m okay because I’m not going to listen. God’s not going to come to me when my head is overwhelmed with fear and riddled with anxiety. I’m not going to listen. Then I’m going to shove it out just like I always did, but rather when my heart and my mind are calm, that’s when he speaks to me the loudest. I know. That any thought that instills fear, worry, panic, uncertainty, or negative thoughts about yourself that’s not from God but rather the voice in our mind that’s trying to win us over. Sometimes our crosses feel too heavy to bear, and we question God. We ask him, Why us? Why was I handed these cards? What did I do to deserve this? Why was it so easy for my earthly father to say no to me? What is so wrong with me that I had to grow up without a dad? I don’t know about you all, but after everything that I endured as a child, I sure as heck did not want to believe in the Lord. And I gave Got a good run for his money. Why do I want to trust anyone? Everyone that I thought I could trust and I thought was going to love me just up and left me. Abandonment is what I faced. I promise you, though, when you turn your heart to the Lord and you put all of your trust in Him, it makes those burdens lighter, and those burdens become lighter because he puts people in your life to help you carry them. He brings people into your life to help you carry those burdens, and he instills in you the strength and the perseverance to see his work in your life, and your eyes become open to see how he loved you through it all, at your best and at your darkest. I still struggle to this day with anxiety and fear, and I’m not proud of it. But I know that everyone has a battle, and that that is mine. But instead of running away from him when I’m anxious, I now know that I can run towards him, and I can run to the foot of that cross, and I can believe in his word and listen to his word and listen to the people who are speaking to me and reminding me that I am okay and I’m going to be okay. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. My earthly father said no to me. But my Heavenly Father said Yes. Because of the Lord and my trust in Him. I can now say that I know that I am loved. I am known. I am deserving. I am worthy. I’m not alone. And I’m wanted by a father who will and has always shown me an everlasting, unfailing, unconditional love unlike anyone else could ever show me. And that he is, was, and always will be for me and for you. Thank you.
Wow. Can we just give it up for all the speakers that came and spoke? I’m so thankful that you guys came here today. A lot of these kids talked about the community that they have here at Eastside. And one of the things that we do for students here, for middle school, high school, all the way up to college, is we have Sunday nights. Sunday night is a service just for them. And we got a chance to ask the students, hey, what do Sunday nights mean to you? So check out this video. Sunday nights. What is it? It’s a safe place. It’s a great environment for middle school, high school to college, where you get to meet with your peers and have a good time and worship Jesus, and get to talk and hang out afterward. And so parents, guardians, grandparents, if you have students that are not plugged in at Eastside for Sunday night service or not in a life group, we want you to come and meet us in my people lounge. We want your student to be plugged in and to experience what these kids and the students that spoke this morning are experiencing. And this is all done because your guys are generous. We can’t do this without your generosity. And so we’re so thankful for the student ministries. So for Sunday nights, we’re not going to meet tonight, but next Sunday night, we’re going to have an awesome time of games, worship, and a message just for students. And so we encourage you. We printed out these cards, and we want you guys to invite somebody, parents, you guys know, other families that are missing out. You hear the stories of their students that have no community that is struggling right now. And this is a chance that you can tell them all about Sunday nights and what your church does for our students because we are for students. And so let me pray, and you guys are dismissed. Father, thank you so much for the opportunity to be humbled to see that you want to use us. God, you are using the students here in Madison County to change lives. God, we’re so thankful for a safe place like Eastside that we can come to worship and praise you. For Sunday nights, that was created for students to give them a safe place, a safe environment, to come, to talk, to worship, and to praise you. God, thank you so much for this awesome and amazing morning. We pray this all in your name. Amen. You’re dismissed.