since i haven't posted in a while...

This was one of the hardest semesters of college thus far. It was academically challenging, spiritually draining, emotionally demanding, mentally testing, etc. However, as ironic as this may be, I did AWESOME in all my classes. I made a B in Microbiology, which I am stinkin’ proud of, and I made A’s in all my other classes, including Statistics! Yeah, that’s right, I got an A in Statistics. yay!

I’m very curious as to how next semester is going to be.  I [finally] have a work study job. I have a class with my best friend. It’s funny, she’s a year ahead of me, but declared her major a year after me (we have the same major).  

I just pray that in the next 3 weeks I can get filled up with the Spirit and back on track with my nazirite vow.  

[no clue why the font is brown, but i don't hate it. ;) ]

"ring by spring"

It seems like everything anyone is talking about lately is relationships and dating.  [Heads up, this blog is probably going to be very scattered.] Here is the reality of the situation: I am in my second year of college and I have never been on a date. I know nothing about dating or relationships. Not because I don't want to, but just because I have no experience whatsoever.   Today, as my friends were once again talking about relationships, my friend Chadley said this: 

You're not ready to be in a relationship until your willing not to be in a relationship.

Sometimes I feel like the normal is sort of different for me.  And this phrase has been really stuck to me lately - I was not made for the ordinary.  But then, what does that mean in this context?  

Is it any different for someone who has never been in a relationship?  I'm completely okay with not being in a relationship in this moment.  I still have growing up to do.  However, I was thinking about what if I never get married.  Because the Lord has put a fire in my heart for the prostitutes and trafficked in India.  What if the Lord wants me to give my whole life to that?  And surrender the idea of having a husband and children.  I don't think this is the case, but if it is, I want to at least experience what it is like to have a boyfriend.    

I would like to think that the Lord has kept me so pure and unheartbroken, so He could bring a pure and unheartbroken guy into my life to romance me and we could model the love of Jesus and His church.  However, that could just be me being a hopeless romantic.  I like this idea the best.  I know the Lord has kept me pure for a reason.  And I don't mean just sexually pure, I mean completely pure in heart.  I praise God that He has created me to be this.  As ignorant as it may make me seem sometimes, I adore my purity.  I don't need a ring on my finger proclaiming that I'm "waiting."  Pure is just what the Lord created me to be.  Although in saying that, I must also face the fact that I am extremely fearful of having my heartbroken.  My friend Sarah told me that she thinks every girl should experience heartbreak because you learn so much through it.  Maybe that is true, but I honestly hope that I am enough out of the ordinary that I don't need to have my heart broken.  

But here is the reality.  

I'm nineteen.  

I'm a sophomore in college.

I don't need to know.  

God is sovereign.  

He has a perfect plan for my life.  

He wants me sanctified.  

So here I stand, as a 19 year old chasing after her Bridegroom.  I am not content with not being in a relationship.  But as our relationship deepens, I will be content with being married to the Prince of Peace, Son of the King of Kings. 

Adam Young (Owl City) said this:

"She is out there. My cinderella.  She is real.  She exists.  I pray for her constantly.  May God satisfy the desires of her heart, draw her close, consume her.  May he claim her passions, her identity, her refuge, her hopes, her strengths and weaknesses, every fiber of her being. May she treasure and cherish her Savior more than anything of this world and cling to His will with every ounce of her stamina. By all that she is, does, and strives to be, may He draw near to her and she to Him."  

 I stand trusting that my earthly prince will one day come.

live the gospel

This was a discussion board for my Introduction to Missions class.  I thought some of you may enjoy my response. The question was:  

"With 1/6 of the modern world under the control and domination of the Muslim faith, the Church must develop a strategy for penetrating this rigid and cloistered section of the world. What approach would you make to reaching the Muslim world?"

First and foremost, I believe that prayer is what is going to radically shift the Muslim population.  I could try to explain a seven-step plan of how to share the gospel with a Muslim and how to lead a whole nation to Christ.  However, I am rigorously in love with Jesus and the Holy Spirit has given me the ability to pray perfect prayers from heaven.  Don’t get me wrong, but if I went to Uzbekistan with the intention of radically sharing the gospel, I would probably do something wrong and land myself in jail, or even more likely dead.  The discussion board question is asking what we would/will do to reach the Muslim world. I will pray.  I have heard hundreds of stories of Muslims having dreams and visions about Jesus, and becoming a Christian without ever hearing an “outsider” to their village say the name of Jesus.  I’ve heard multiple stories about a Muslim having a dream that Jesus came to them and told them a white man would come and tell them how to have eternal life (or something along those lines) and then the next week, a missionary comes into their village for the first time.  Praise God that He still works through visions and dreams.  As a part of the Church, while I’m in college, I will pray for the Muslim world; I will pray that Jesus would appear to the unreached Muslim population in dreams and visions.  

Secondly, I will go.  Again, I am answering this personally, not as the Church as a whole, but as what I will do to help the Church invest in the Muslim world.  Sometime after graduation, I am planning on moving to India.  I believe the Lord has already began to unveil His plan for me to minister to women in brothels.  Many of these women will be Muslim, as it is, along with Hindu, a prominent religion in India. I want to invest my life in these women.  I plan on loving them with the unconditional love of Jesus.  I will lead them into a relationship with me where they can completely trust me.  And in this discipleship (yes, I believe discipleship can start prior to salvation), I will show these girls who Jesus is.  I will live the gospel and love the gospel and speak the gospel and be the gospel.  This is how I will approach Islam; consumed with the love of Jesus.  

crumpled at the feet of Jesus

Saturday I got to have lunch with my best friend Taylor.  We go to college about five hours apart and do not get to see each other often.  Since we were both home for thanksgiving, I was stoked to get to catch up with her. We exchanged stories of what has been going on in our lives and what the Lord has been up to.  I was venting to her about how I have realized that mercy (which stems into serving) is my most prevalent spiritual gift.  I explained to her that I have realized that it hurts when you care more about a person than they care about you; or a friendship, relationship, ministry, etc.  Taylor immediately responded, "Yeah, but doesn't that just make you more like God?  I mean, that's how He feels. He loves and cares about us so much, and we don't return the same affection."  


Can you say, "WOW!"   


That is seriously so friggin' good.  Here I am, wallowing in self-pity, when I really should be rejoicing because I am becoming more like Jesus. Jeez, I just want to punch myself sometimes for being such a dummy.  I am doing this Nazirite vow to be consecrated, to be set apart, to be made holy. I've been sitting around being depressed, and God is probably like, "Come on Case, snap out of it, I'm doing what you've been asking for, you just can't see it because you're too busy worrying about how messed up you are."  


It's funny, almost two months ago when I became a Nazirite, I expected to get so spiritually mature, wise, joyous, happy, consumed, etc.  I thought it would be easy.  Boy was I wrong.  Maybe for some Nazirite's it is easy, but for me, it is ROUGH.  I've questioned my faith a whole lot more in the last two months than ever before.  I've wanted to give up a whole lot in the last two months.  I've wanted to run away a whole lot in the last two months.  I've honestly prayed a lot less in the last two months.  I believe that I needed to be completely broken before God could begin to restore me and make me holy.  I think I needed to be burnt out to see how I cannot do it on my own.  I needed to get overwhelmed to lose my pride.  I needed to be broken in order to be made new.  However, all that to say, I'm still crumpled at the feet of Jesus, completely broken. And to be honest, if this means I'm becoming more like Jesus, I'm willing to stay in this place of brokenness.  Even though it hurts really bad and is extremely uncomfortable and monumentally lonely and doesn't make sense all the time.  Jesus was nailed to a cross, He definitely hurt.  He had no place to lay His head, so I'd assume He was rather uncomfortable.  The disciples wouldn't even stay awake long enough to pray for Him in Gethsemane, so I would imagine He felt loneliness.  


Here I am God.  I'm naked and broken, but I'm Yours.  Give me strength to become like You.  My love is EXTREMELY weak.  Change me in this weakness.  

Sanctified Hearing

You know what the most awesome thing is?

When someone prays that your ears will be tuned into God and that you will hear exactly what He wants to say to you.  You listen.  Then the person tells you what they heard God saying to you … and it is EXACTLY the same thing you heard God say.  

Tonight, the Lord said to me,  

“Stop trying to earn My love.  Stop trying to earn salvation.  STOP TRYING.  I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.  When you try to earn My love, you are rejecting My gift, My grace.  Stop trying Casey, just receive.  I love you.”  

But my flesh began to say, great, now I have offended God.  I’m such a failure.  I would mess up at receiving the love of God.  I screw everything up.  I can never do anything right.  And the Lord said, 

“Beloved, there is no condemnation.  No punishment, no punishment, no punishment, no punishment.  I love you beloved.  I do not punish the ones I love.  And I LOVE YOU CASEY.  I love you.  There is no punishment in love.” 

Then my friend Andrew was like, Casey, I heard the Lord saying that He loves you.  Andrew hesitated, then said, the Lord said to stop trying.  To stop trying to earn His love.  I was like, WOAHHH, that is exactly what I heard.  

I think God wants me to stop trying.  :)

Sanctified Imagination

Tonight at the WATCH, [which is a prayer meeting that I attend Tuesday nights] we prayed for the Lord to redeem our imaginations.  When our imaginations our touched by the Spirit of God, we begin to breathe out the revelation of God.  Think about it.  Over 70% of the Bible was written from dreams or visions.  The prophets weren’t superhuman. We easily want to think that, but as James reminds us, Elijah was a man just like us (5:17). At the WATCH, we began to ask the Lord to open our eyes and let our mind dream His hearts thoughts.  Then we let the Spirit do as He wished.  

I saw myself sitting in the woods by a creek back home.  I was leaning against a tree, hugging my legs tight against my body.  I was crying.  Overwhelmed with self-hatred and the fact that I’ll never been good enough.  Every once in a while I would lift my head up a bit and peek over my knees to see if anyone was coming to rescue me from this despair.  I lifted my eyes and saw Jesus coming towards me.  I quickly jerked my head back down, ashamed of my faithlessness and just covered in worthlessness.  I longed for Him to come to me, but I was ashamed that I desired His attention.  The tree I was leaning on was suddenly gone and I was laying in more of a sunny meadow.  Jesus was over me, lavishing me with kisses.  I know that may sound sorta weird, but it wasn’t.  He was coating my face and neck with righteous kisses.  It was absolutely beautiful.  Then He began to just say, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you completely, I love you outrageously, I love you 100%, all the time, I love you. 

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth - for your love is more delightful than wine.  (Song of Solomon 1:2)

All beautiful you are, my darling, there is no flaw in you. (4:7)

My lover is mine and I am his… (2:16)

You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride; you have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace. (4:9)

Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave.  It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away. (8:6-7)

[Thank You God, that you are not only my Father, but also my Lover.]

funny conversation

Today, I prayed over Shane Claiborne (Click his name for more information).  

Me: Hi Shane, I know you need to leave, but I was wondering if I could pray for you?

Shane: You’re not one of those Pentecostals who will pray for 10 minutes, are you?

Julieth (my roommate): No, I’ll only pray for like 9 minutes.

Me: I am pretty Pentecostal, but I’ll pray real quick. 

Shane: [to me] How about just you pray?

[Julieth giggles, and later tells me, “he really took me seriously…”]

Me: Sounds good. 

[then I prayed, for like 1-2 minutes. haha.]