Pray Without Ceasing

                                       "Pray without ceasing" I Thessalonians 5:17

Hey Everyone,

I haven't been able to get this off of my mind for almost a month so I decided I would write it down, and what better place to write it but here on my blog. :)
     The last few weeks I have been feeling really old, which makes me laugh because I'm only 17. Everyone is finishing high school, getting ready for college, and getting jobs. Everyone is growing up and it's really starting to sink in as I finish up my Junior year of high school.
      I was thinking about when I was 9 and a sermon from almost ten years ago came to mind. My pastor was preaching on prayer, which is something he's always been very big on preaching. During his message he gave an illustration that really happened a few days before.
   His wife and kids were driving home from somewhere and they realized that they were running out of gas, so as they were trying to find a gas station they started praying, asking God to let them make it to a gas station. God answered their prayer and they made it to the station, but as they pulled into the parking lot the car died, sitting in the middle of the gas station their car had run out of gas. The kids all got out of the car and started pushing it toward the gas pump. As they were pushing one of the boys said to his mom " We probably should have prayed to make it all the way to the gas pump" The point of the message was to pray specifically. Not just pray an empty prayer to God, but to really mean what you say, ask God for exactly what you need. For years and years the message has just been a funny sermon that I remember hearing, but was never something that I actually thought to apply to my life. For some reason though that message has always been the only one I can remember, I can't remember any other message preached by that man as well as I remember this one. It's just always stuck out in my mind and I've always called it one of my favorite sermons.
    Now the funny thing is I wrote all of this down four days ago, and I was going to tell you all about how excited I was to go to a youth retreat this weekend, but I didn't have time to finish it so it sat here all written out on my desk all weekend and I went away to Camp Ray bird with my church for a youth weekend. Little did I know that it was going to be one of the most amazing revivals I have ever been to.The Over all theme of the weekend was "Are you a fan or a follower?"  The last night there wasn't a dry eye in the room. Usually when teens get together we just want to hang out, get the church over with and go play a game, but this weekend we were all asking for more, One more testimony, one more song, one more point in a sermon, one more NIGHT so that were could have a whole nother service. The last night we went over the service time by an hour and a half, teens just kept crying on each others shoulders and getting help. Some talked about how they had never felt accepted until they came to our church, some said that they no longer just wanted to be fans of Jesus but complete followers, that they wanted to serve Jesus with everything they had. Then we would sing another song and the testimonies would just keep coming, my jaw kept dropping as I saw one after another come to the front and kneel and pray and cry and then I would see someone come up and pray with them. Even the youth workers were getting help. I have never seen teens grow up so quickly and act so mature during a service. I wish I could fully describe to you how amazing it was, how you could feel Jesus on everyone, but I can't, I can't describe the feeling I had when I saw the people crying on each others saying "let me pray with you, I love you "
    This weekend made my pastor's sermon from when I was a little girl come alive.  We all prayed so hard as the retreat got closer, the workers were praying that we would see something that we had never seen before. They were praying for us to expect the unexpected, and it all went right along with praying specifically, we would be doing our group devotion and even though prayer would just be talked about briefly in passing that sermon would immediately come to my mind. The entire experience made me so thankful for all of our youth workers, I've never seen anyone that was able to get teens so excited about serving Jesus, I've never seen youth workers get so involved with each teen and put so much effort into each and every one of us. Whether or not we made a big decision this weekend or not, I know we all got a ton of help, just seeing what that last night did made me want to serve God more, it made me want to get in my Bible and get more of what I got this weekend.
    I'm so thankful for that sermon I heard when I was little, and I'm so glad that I can remember it so vividly even after almost ten years. Thank you Pastor Courtright for leaving such an impact on my life even if that is the only sermon I remember ;) I'm so thankful that God gave me you as a Pastor for all the years He did.
    Thank Karl and Kristy Ruminski, and Randy and Leila Lepard for everything you do for us, thank you for giving me memories and experiences that will also leave such an impact on my life as  I get older and have to continue decided whether or not to be just a fan or a complete follower. I am so blessed to have people like you at my church and love every Wednesday  Sunday  every after glow and every trip we take with you guys. I love you all so much, you are amazing! :)
 I'll try to post pictures of all of it sometime soon, I have so many to go through and I'm excited to share just a little bit of what I got to experience and capture on camera.

                                                      Thanks for stopping by everyone,
                                                             Have an awesome day! :))