Unprepared.

3 weeks. I am 3 weeks away from being a wife. 3 weeks from being a bride to the man God has made for me. I cannot tell you how unprepared and undeserving I am. Yes, I said it, I am completely unprepared for it.

This world puts so much focus on the material things like the ceremony, the decorations, the food, and the small details that no one even remembers. I have spent hours and hours planning our ‘perfect’ day. I have gotten upset because something wasn’t going ‘as planned.’ I have been mad about not having the budget to fit in something that is so useless when it comes to being a wife. Ah-ha! Useless when it comes to being a Wife.

God has really tested me in this area recently. This past week I have really thought about the wife I am going to be for Tress, and I felt this overwhelming amount of guilt. The closer I get, the more and more I realize that marriage is so different from what this world looks at it to be, but it is easy to fall into the worlds view. It is so much more than living with your best friend, having sex and doing whatever you want with the person you love. Marriage is a covenant between you, your husband/wife and Christ. A covenant that takes so much more than planning for 15 months, so much more prayer, so much more focus on Christ than I have been giving. I think that is something we forget, and I thank God for reminding me that my wedding day isn’t just a day, but a day that marks the start of a lifelong covenant to Christ and my husband. Gosh, I have failed miserably to prepare myself to be the wife God asks us to be, but I have faith in knowing that God is bigger than my shortcomings. The bible says,

“A worthy wife is a crown for her husband but a disgraceful woman is like cancer to his bones” Proverbs 12:4

 Thank you God for your grace and thank you Tress for loving me even though I have failed you. I have taken the step and the initiative to start my day to prepare myself to be the child God deserves, and the wife that Tress deserves. What is that going to take? It takes the effort of putting Christ first, the effort of searching for Christ wholeheartedly, the effort of spending time in His word, and the effort to have a prayerful heart that God would mold me into the woman I need to be.

I know some of you are not close to marriage, some of you may already be married, but man, our lives should be the same way! The day we committed our lives to Christ, we made a covenant with Christ. We are Christ’s bride! Are we striving every day to honor and serve God, are we in his word everyday, are we prepared to fulfill this covenant we committed our life to? Ask yourself this honest question. I have been a Christian for as long as I can remember and I continue to fall short and unfortunately, I will always fall short but God is so gracious and forgiving.

Proverbs 31:10 says that a wife of noble character is worth far more than rubies. This is who I want to be. My prayer is that you and I would prepare our hearts to the covenants we committed to and are committing to. It’s a lifelong battle and we are going to have our ups and downs, but lets take this first step in committing to it together.

Start planning to be a wife and stop planning the wedding!

Blesssing, 

Brianna

All in His Hands

Have you ever been tired, weak, or frustrated because things weren’t going your way? Have you ever felt helpless because the plans you had weren’t going how you wanted them to? Through this, did you ever stop and think that maybe the man who created this world had it all in his hands?

It took a career stalling injury for me to figure it out and realize that even when I didn’t have it together, God did. Even when I didn’t want to trust that things were going to work out, God’s plans never failed. Throughout my softball career I have been blessed without injury. I never really had to deal with anything stopping me from doing what I loved. But then came a shoulder injury. I ended up playing through it in hopes that it would heal itself, and waited until my season was over to finally get it checked. I went to the doctors anticipating at the most a sprain, only to find out that I needed surgery. When I heard this, I was frustrated and angry. I have played sports for 14 years without injury, so why now? This was not how I planned my softball career to be, but God had different plans.

The doctor told me my recovery would be about 6-12 months. With wishful thinking, 6 months would get me back in time for season. The next week, I went into surgery. Thankful that it was over, I woke up from surgery only to hear the doctor give me more bad news. He said my arm was a lot worse than they expected. They told me that I tore my shoulder in 2 places making the recovery time closer to 12 months. As if that wasn’t enough, he told me that because of all they extra work they had to do, it would be unrealistic for me to play this coming season. I was so frustrated when I found out. That would mean I would have to red shirt and that is not something I had in my plan, in fact, it was not even an option for me.

At that moment, and through the tears and heavy heart, I heard God speak to me. He simply said, “Trust me! You’re going to play this year.” I found myself questioning God about this. The doctor just told me that my recovery would take about a year, which means I would miss the entire season and even some of the next fall season. How could it be possible that the doctor’s recovery plans for me and God’s plans were so different? I constantly found myself questioning God. I was limiting God to the size of my problem, when in fact, God is so much bigger than that. It says in His word that through him ANYTHING is possible.

Throughout my recovery God gave me so many reasons to trust him and even still, I doubted Him. He made a promise to me that I would be back this year. He was constantly telling me to trust in Him because he knows what he is doing.

He would show me scripture after scripture of why I should trust him, but me of so little faith still doubted. I was so stuck on what the doctor had told me that I didn’t think it would be possible for me to get back on the field in time for season. Then God opened my eyes to a verse that said, “Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished” (Luke 1:45). At that moment I was so convicted. So many times God could have given up on me for having so little faith, yet he continued to pursue me and continued to show me that he had everything in his hands. He never gave up on me. One thing it took a while for me to realize is that my God is not an ordinary God, so why would I limit him to something so ordinary? My God is extraordinary and has no limits, and me, an ordinary college girl, can do anything through Christ who gives me strength.

One thing we all have to remember is God is NOT ordinary. He does extraordinary things. Even when situations seem impossible, God can do anything. His plans may be out of our comfort zone, or may seem near impossible to attain, but we have to trust in God and step out in faith. When we do this, God always blessed us. His love never fails. God blessed me and taught me so much through this experience. The doctor told me it would take about a year to recover, and by the grace of God, I was starting to throw and hit at 3.5 months. By 6 months and 6 days I was cleared, and by 6 months and 1 week I was playing in my first game of the year. This was 6 whole months earlier than the doctors said, and I didn’t have to red shirt. (God is SO good!) Even when I didn’t completely trust God, he STILL put a promise on my heart and never failed to keep it. So why are we so quick to trust people, but when it comes to God we question his plans? Even when He proves his faithfulness to us over and over again, through testimony and scripture, we still doubt him. Yet people fail us all the time and we are so quick to trust them. Not once has God ever made a promise and has failed to keep it. God’s love never fails us and we must constantly remind ourselves of that, because no matter how difficult or impossible situations may seem, God already had it all figured out. Just like it says in Romans 8:28 “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Notice it says all, not some but ALL things will be good. No matter how bad a situation seems, trust in God’s promises. I’ve learned so much through this experience, but one thing that stuck out to me the most is that not being able to fully understand God’s plans was so frustrating, but how ridiculous was is it for me to think that I had the right to limit God to something I was capable of comprehending? Never limit God to something you can comprehend because his plans are so much greater than you can imagine. So praise God when you win and praise God when you lose because through God, all things are made good. Jesus loves you all and He already has everything figure out, so trust him!

Be blessed,

Carissa

(Last thing, my surgery scars are in the shape of crosses and there are 3 of them. How awesome is that? Just another reminder to me that since the beginning of this obstacle God had everything in the palm of him hand!)

Carissa Turang, Cal State Fullerton Softball

Seek First

When Jesus tells us “seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you,” why do we ignore that? It seems pretty obvious right? But as we get older, as we develop relationships, as we get married, as we go on with life every day, we forget that The Lord actually WANTS to bless us. He only asks one thing of us, to search after Him. To literally pick up our bibles every day and spend time with Him by asking, “okay Lord, I’m all yours. Show me what you want to do I’m my life.” That’s when we begin to feel those tugs on our hearts, when we feel those deep convictions of temptations and sins from our past or present, and most of all that hope that we feel from The Lord on what our life CAN be. Bri and I are not perfect by any means, but we make an effort every day both as a couple, and individually to keep being perfected by The Lord. We have often talked about this and feel that there are three steps that WE as followers of Christ must take in order to see God work in our lives.

The first one is “choose God.” There may be many of you who feel God tugging on your heart to give your life to Him, to put your faith in Him, or simply just listen to Him. We make hundreds of choices each day, and some of them directly influence the rest of our lives. And what’s really tough, is the areas of your life that you feel the Holy Spirit convicting you right now. Maybe an area of your life that you’ve refused to give up to The Lord because it’s tough, in “uncool,” your family and friends would think differently of you, or you’re scared. Let me ask you this, what could it look like? What could your life look like?! We will never know unless we decide to choose God in our lives.

The second is “show God.” What is so beautiful about our Lord is that our beliefs are not based off of some “religion” where we follow a specific sort of rules and then we can go to Heaven. Instead, it is a relationship. And just like any other relationship, if you want that relationship to get stronger, you have to spend more and more time with that person. Then you even begin to start acting like that person! How awesome would that be. Maybe you’re like me, in that I always made it look like I loved The Lord on the outside just to make sure everyone thought I was on fire. When the truth was I was lost, empty, and searching for love in the wrong areas of life. I hope you call yourself a follower of Christ, but what if we showed God that we have our faith in Him. What if we showed God we loved him by spending time with Him. What if we showed God we loved Him by choosing Him.

The last one is “trust God.” In order for the first two to even be a thought, we have to trust The Lord. When it’s easy and when it’s tough. When we are supported and when we are on our own. When we spend time with The Lord every day and read God’s word, are we really listening? Are we taking these precious words of life and letting them impact out every day? Are you able to lay your head down at night with a smile knowing that you have absolutely no idea what the heck the future holds, but you know who holds your future! We sing our worship songs, we wear our rings and necklaces with crosses on them, we tweet our verses, but do we live them?

Bri and I took a walk one night and she looked at me and said, “do you think when we get to Heaven God is going to ask us about the verses we memorized or tweeted or put on Facebook? Because I believe He’ll smile and ask us what we did with those verses and how those verses changed our life.” If we seek Him first, he shows us the rest of the way. Plain and simple. We need to have child-like faith and just believe and act on that first part. Because He takes care of the rest.

Please contact us if you guys need anything at all or have any questions.

God bless you guys.

Prayer

Lord, we have felt for some time now in our hearts that you have blessed us with a platform and the ability to influence. You brought us together, you have blessed our relationship, and our goal is to keep you the center of our lives. Our prayer is that the journey you have lead us on, and continue to lead us on, will glorify you. We pray that the words that we share would be yours and not ours. Lord, continue to teach us your will everyday, that we may practice what we preach and share the joy of living in your will. Amen.